Space Walkers
by TheLoneWo1f
Summary: After ten years in space, the crew of Aurora goes back to Earth. But the once beautiful, human-filled planet is now overrun with walkers. They see the wasteland of what used to be Earth and they blast off back into space. But some of those same human eating walkers are going along with them. (Rated M in certain parts)
1. Coming home to destruction

A/N: Hello there! Well as you can tell by the title, this is going to be a pretty crazy fanfic. I asked people on the TellTale forums if they thought a fanfic about Walkers in space would be cool and they all said yes. So I listened and decided to write one! It's taken a while for me to finish writing this first chapter so hopefully, you guys enjoy it. If you did then be sure to let me know! As for a release date to the next chapter, I'll post it on May 12th. Anyway, thank you for checking out my first chapter to Space Walkers and hopefully, you enjoy it.

 _In honor of Matilde_

 _(1918-2017)_

 _I always remembered playing dominos with you every single time I went to Puerto Rico ever since I was nine years old. It was one of the things I always looked forward to. I saw you getting older and older and worse and worse. But I would still always see you. I thought you were a superhero because I thought you would never die. I would see you every single time I went to Puerto Rico and we would always play dominoes. But last year would be our last domino game. I just wish I would've cherished it more. But you're still playing dominoes. But now with my grandfather and my grandmother and not with me. But don't worry. I'll play dominoes with you again someday._

 _Chapter 1_

 _Coming home to destruction_

" _The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"_

 _-Edgar Allan Poe_

* * *

 _Space._

It's so beautiful, yet so terrifying.

The stars, shining bright. Over one hundred billion of these lanterns light up the dark, never ending vacuum of space. The planets, dancing in circles, all floating together in an endless sea. The galaxy's, drifting slowly, carrying the planets and stars with them. The universe, constantly expanding, never reaching an end.

What a beautiful sight. But looks can be deceiving.

Space is actually very dangerous. There's no oxygen for you to breathe. If you get lost you can't yell for help. The temperature is a freezing negative four hundred fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Black holes can suck you into a place where light can't even escape. Then you'd be split into pieces and be swallowed in complete darkness. There are lots of dangers in space. But there's a danger that's not in space. At least, not yet...

* * *

The lights flickered quickly, like as if someone was flicking a light switch back and forth. But the flickering eventually stopped and the lights stayed completely on.

 _Aurora_ was coming to life.

The ship's engines activated and _Aurora_ stopped it's ten years drift in space and instead, entered autopilot mode, guiding the ship through the dark, never ending sea known as space.

Suddenly, a hyper-sleeping pod hissed. The shield disconnected from the pure white pod and ascended towards the ceiling. The shield came to a complete stop and the pure white room was noiseless.

Suddenly the occupant of the previously stated pod woke up and sat up rapidly. The man took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. He shivered as the cold air wrapped itself throughout his entire body. He looked down at himself and delicately pulled on his snow-white shirt. The dirty blonde man looked around the pure white room as if he couldn't believe where he was.

In the corner of the room, he saw a man dressed in a lab coat and white matching trousers. But the man wasn't actually a man, nor was he human at all. He was a cybernetic organism.

You could mistake him for being a real human being. But in reality, he was a cybernetic organism with living tissue for skin. Although he would rather call himself a cybernetic organism with living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. He had light charcoal gray hair, jet black eyes, and a light gray beard. He was just like a human. Except he felt no pain, no remorse, and let's not forget that he had a metal endoskeleton.

"Hello there Commander Lyall. How was your sleep?" The cybernetic organism asked as it looked down at a clipboard and checked off something with a pen.

Lyall yawned at the mention of sleep. "It was fine Cedrick. How long have I slept?"

"Ten years, two months, two weeks, five days, three hours, twenty-six minutes, and thirty-nine seconds." Cedrick answered instantly as he looked up from his clipboard.

Lyall sighed and rolled his sky blue eyes. "You could've just said the years."

"I'm sorry sir. Ten years is roughly how long you've slept." Cedrick gave a slight smirk as he corrected himself.

"I thought we were supposed to go back to Earth in five years. What happened?" Lyall asked as he looked around the room as if to find the answer.

"NASA ordered me to keep Aurora in Mars's orbit for ten years." Cedrick revealed as he placed the clipboard on a small table in the corner.

Lyall's eyes widened at that. "Why?" Lyall asked with great curiosity.

"They didn't tell me anything, sir. They just said something classified has happened back on Earth and they told me to let Aurora stay in Mars's orbit for at least ten years."

Lyall tilted his head to the right in great confusion. "What happened?"

Cedrick turned around from the desk and gazed at the dirty blond haired man. "I told you already sir. They said it was classified." Cedrick repeated like a broken record.

Lyall sighed and slowly got out of his pod. He placed his right foot on the floor and it slightly trembled. He put his other foot down slowly and it trembled even more than his right foot. As Lyall got out of the pod he suddenly dropped but caught himself by holding onto the hypersleep pod. Lyall got up gradually and walked slowly towards Cedrick, almost limping. When he got to the cybernetic organism he looked directly into its eyes and saw red dimly lit dots at the center of its jet black pupils through its emotionless eyes.

"Cedrick, why is it classified? Why are they not telling us what's going on?" Lyall asked while he fell into a deep trance, staring deeply into the red orbs.

"I don't know sir. I'm only telling you what they told me. But they did title the classification as something quite interesting."

"What did they call it?" Lyall asked as he got out of the trance of the red lights.

"They called it Walkers."

"Walkers? What does that mean?" Lyall asked curiously.

"I don't know sir. That's just what they classified it as."

The dirty blond haired man sighed. "This is such a mess. How much longer until we get to Earth?"

"One hour, twenty-three minutes, and twenty-five seconds." Cedrick immediately answered.

Lyall crossed his arm and rolled his sky blue eyes once again at Cedrick. "You could've just said the hours."

"I'm sorry sir. One hour is roughly the time."

"Thank you, Cedrick. Now can you wake up everyone else?" Lyall asked as he motioned his hand towards all the pods.

"Yes sir, of course." Cedrick answered as he nodded. Cedrick walked over to a control panel in the center of the room where it was surrounded by the hypersleep pods that laid on the pure white floor. Cedrick started to press certain buttons while Lyall walked through the pure white room at a slow, almost limping pace.

Against a wall was a massive screen with pictures of the faces of the crew of _Aurora_ and their heartbeats. Lyall's is not showing any heartbeats since he's not in his pod anymore. But everyone else's was beating at a normal rate. Lyall walked over to a pod and looked through its shield. A man with hazelnut skin was sleeping peacefully as if he'd done it for years. And he definitely has. Lyall walked away from the man's pod and walked to a narrow window. He looked out of it and saw thousands of small lanterns shining in the darkness of space. In the distance was a gray sphere that floated very slowly past them. It's giant craters making some of the grays on its surface turn into an even darker, almost black, shade of gray.

"The moon is quite magnificent, isn't it?" Cedrick asked while he continued to press multiple buttons.

"Very." Lyall answered with his mouth almost entirely open in amazement.

Suddenly the soundless room erupted with multiple hisses. The shields covering the crew members of _Aurora_ in hypersleep opened up and ascended upwards. Lyall turned around and looked away from the window that showed only a tiny sliver of their galaxy, the Milky Way.

The shields finished ascending all the way up and the hissing dissolved until it fully vanished. The screen that showed everyone's heartbeat started to make high-pitched beeping noises. Suddenly someone's heartbeat stopped and the same person woke up from their hypersleep. The hazelnut skinned man got up promptly and looked down at his shirt. He pulled on his snow-white shirt and looked around the room as if he didn't know where he was. The man inspected the pure white room and found a dirty blond haired man standing just a couple feet away from him.

The man tilted his head in a perplexed way. "Hey, what are you doing standing up while all of us are still sleepin'?" The man asked completely baffled.

"I had to take care of some stuff, don't worry about it, Dom."

"Alright." Dominick replied skeptically with his black eyebrows raised. Dominick slowly got out of his own pod and placed his feet slowly onto the floor. His feet trembled but he didn't fall like Lyall did.

Little by little the whole crew awakened from their ten-year slumber. They all got out of their pods gradually and slowly walked towards Lyall. They all stood in front of Lyall with their arms crossed and their eyes all staring at the blonde man that was their leader.

"Well guys, I've got some bad news." He stated in a very nonchalant way.

"What's going on?" A man with black hair asked.

"Well, I don't know much about it, Eduardo. But Cedrick can tell you." Lyall answered.

Cedrick started walking towards them as if he already knew that Lyall would call him over. Lyall backed away from the group and Cedrick stepped in his place.

"Well as I already informed Commander Lyall, NASA ordered me to keep Aurora in Mars' orbit for ten years. Then they told me that the mission was canceled. But they didn't tell me why." Cedrick answered.

Everyone groaned and put their hands to their heads.

"This is bullshit! Why would they do that? We were supposed to go to Mars!" A bronze skinned man yelled.

"I'm sorry Darius, but the mission is canceled. We don't know why and there's nothing we can do about it." Cedrick replied in a relaxed voice.

Lyall put his hand on Darius's shoulder to try and comfort him. "Hey, it'll be alright man. We'll go to Mars another day." Darius nodded and Lyall walked over back to the place where he originally stood as Cedrick walked away.

"Thank you, Cedrick. Now listen everyone. We're going to arrive to Earth shortly. When we get there we'll get to the bottom of this. For now, let's all have a nice meal. I haven't eaten in ten years."

Everyone giggled and chuckled at the joke Lyall said, making them feel better about the whole situation.

"You know, a meal sure sounds good right now." Lynn replied with a little giggle of her own.

"Alright good. Now everyone put on your jackets and let's eat." Lyall ordered.

Everyone started walking out of the room where they were in hypersleep. They exited the pure white room and entered a contrasting dark hallway. Lyall started to walk out of the room but Dominick stopped him in his tracks.

"Hey Lyall, can I talk to you?" Dominick asked as he blocked the exit.

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

Dominick motioned his head towards the hallway, signaling that they should talk there. Lyall and Dominick both exited the room and Lyall leaned on the wall next to the exit. Dominick stood in front of Lyall and he looked like he was depressed.

"I had this dream and I don't know what it meant." Dominick revealed.

Lyall's sky blue eyes enlarged in curiosity. "You had a dream during your hypersleep?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Well, they say that dreams show you the future."

Dominick's face frowned when he heard that. "That's what I'm afraid of."

"What happened?" Lyall asked with great curiosity.

Dominick took a quick glance towards the end of the dark hallway and then concentrated back on Lyall. He took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. "Well, I was back on Earth, driving back to my house with my car. But when I went in my house…"

Tears started to form inside Dominick's eyes and he looked like he was about to cry. Lyall put his hand on Dominick's shoulder and tried to comfort him. "What happened?" Lyall asked.

"I saw my girlfriend. She was just sittin' there, watching TV. But when I talked to her she didn't respond, she didn't move, she didn't do anything. But when I turned around she woke up and jumped on me. She got on top of me and tried to bite my face like a dog. I tried to get her off me but I couldn't." Dominick answered as tears started to fill his eyes even more. His eyes couldn't handle the tears and they fell down his hazelnut skin like a waterfall.

Lyall felt heartbroken seeing his friend like this and he gave Dominick a hug. Dominick's tears made Lyall's right shoulder start to feel cold and wet.

"Her eyes were all white and her skin was all gray." Dominick sobbed as he kept crying.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay. It was all just a dream man. I bet your girlfriend is alive and well." Lyall tried to comfort his friend and it seemed to work.

Dominick and Lyall stopped hugging and Dominick faced Lyall with his eyes red with his tears and he slowly wiped them off his face with his hands. Lyall felt his heart sink when he saw his friends face.

"You said that dreams can show the future. Are you sure it can't happen?" Dominick asked while he continued to wipe the tears off of his face.

"Yes, I'm positive."

Dominick made a slight smile but there was still pain and depression in his eyes. "Thanks, Lyall."

Lyall couldn't help but feel happy that he was able to help Dominick feel better. "No problem. Now go get something to eat." Lyall ordered.

"Yes, sir." Dominick raised his hand and saluted Lyall. Lyall saluted him back and Dominick started to walk away from Lyall and went towards the room where everyone else went. Lyall could hear him sniffle as he walked down the dark hallway.

 _His girlfriend tried to bite him? That must've been a scary dream to have. I can't even imagine if I had a girlfriend and that happened,_ Lyall thought.

Lyall started walking down the eerily dark and very cold hallway. The tears from Dominick that fell on his right shoulder didn't help and only made him colder.

Walking down the hallway was like walking down a long tube, except the tube was in the shape of a hexagon and not of a circle. A bright white light shined at the end of the dark hallway.

It was the center of _Aurora._

The black vents on the floor made clanking noises each time Lyall stepped on them. The same dark vents on the floor were also on the sides of the hexagonal shaped hallway. The black screens connected to the top of the roof were pitch black.

Nobody knew how to turn them on.

Orange light bulbs were connected to the roof and they were the only things that weren't dark in this menacing hallway. But nobody knew how to turn them on either. There was no button to press, no lever to pull, no switch to turn, there was nothing they could do to turn them on. Lyall really wished that they could be turned on so that the hallway wouldn't be so dim.

Lyall started sliding his hand along the pipes that ran throughout the top and bottom of the walls of the hexagonal hallway as he continued walking. Lyall shivered as he got closer and closer to the bright light at the end of the hallway. The light got brighter and brighter and Lyall eventually got completely engulfed in it. The light blinded him and he squinted his eyes so he could see.

Lyall started to open his eyes slowly as he got used to the brightness. The center of the ship reminded Lyall of the room he was hyper-sleeping in. With its pure white walls and floors. Lyall walked around the ladder in the middle of the room which, when climbed up, led to the very top of the ship where the cockpit, dining room, and rooms were. But, when climbed down, led to the very depths of _Aurora._

In the corner of the pure white room was a big, circular white door that led to where the jackets were. Lyall took out his Aurora mission card and inserted it into a small machine that was connected to the wall next to the big white door. There was a red light at the bottom of the machine and when Lyall took out his card the light quickly turned from red to green.

The door hissed and opened slowly, rotating counterclockwise like a coin rolling on the floor. The door made a loud bang as it finished opening. Lyall entered the room and it reminded him of a locker room, but without the _terrible_ smell. The whole room was pure white just like the center of _Aurora._

"Darius, Dominick, Rolf, Elwynn." Lyall read off the names of the crew members that were engraved into shelves as he walked past them.

"Lyall. Here we are." Lyall said as he got to his name. A snow-white jacket hung from a hanger. The white on the jacket was a little darker than the pure white room it was in. The white jacket's back was turned towards Lyall. The word _**Aurora**_ was written in bold and Lyall rubbed his thumb on the letter A.

Lyall grabbed the hanger gently and took the jacket carefully off of the hanger. He held the jacket with his right arm and hung the hanger back up gently with his left hand. Lyall grabbed the jacket with both of his hands and it felt cold as snow and as well it should be. It hadn't been used in over ten years.

Lyall turned the white coat around, revealing a light gray zipper that went through the middle of it. Lyall rubbed his left thumb on the left of the jacket where it had Lyall's name along with _**Aurora**_ in bold at the top of it. On the right of the jacket was a patch with NASA's symbol. The zipper made a little noise as Lyall gently pulled it down to the bottom of the snow white jacket. The zipper pulled apart, revealing the snow-white inside of the jacket. Lyall put his right arm into the jacket and his arm entered the coldness that was the inside of his ten-year unworn jacket. His right hand popped out the sleeve and he then put his left arm in the opposite sleeve. The sleeve felt just as cold as the other one and his left hand popped out of the sleeve. The zipper made the same noise again as he gently lifted the light gray zipper with his right hand.

Lyall walked over to a very small mirror and saw a dirty blond haired man with hair gel and sky blue eyes that stared back at him. Lyall studied his reflection, touching his chin and his hair.

 _It's been ten years and I haven't aged a bit._ Lyall thought.

"Hey, Lyall! Hurry up man, we're waiting for you to get here so we can eat!" Darius faintly yelled from upstairs.

"Coming!" Lyall yelled back.

Lyall stopped gazing at himself and unhurriedly walked out of the room. The door hissed as it slowly started to close. Lyall got to the metal ladder at the center of the room and put his right foot, as well as both of his hands, on the frigid ladder. Lyall tilted his head to look back at the intimidating, dark hallway. Lyall shook his head and looked upwards as he climbed the metal ladder. The metal felt cold every single time Lyall put his hand on the metal ladder as he climbed. Lyall got halfway to the top of the ladder and jumped off of it and landed on a solid, pure white floor. Lyall looked down at his cold hands and saw the marks of the ladder in the middle of them.

Lyall put his hands down and walked down the pure white hallway. Lyall looked at the windows to his right and saw even more of the thousands of stars in the dark, never ending sea of space. Lyall took his attention off of the windows and looked to his left, where there were doors that lead to the dorms of the occupants of _Aurora_. The white, bright hallway that Lyall was walking in, to Lyall, was better than the dark, menacing hallway that was just below him.

Lyall got to the big, open circular door at the end of the hallway and entered the room. The rest of the crew was seated in chairs that surrounded a big pure white circular table with plates of food in front of them. They all stopped their conversations and looked at Lyall with smiles on their faces.

"Look who's finally here!" Darius yelled as he got up and put his arm over Lyall's neck. Everyone cheered and applauded.

"Shut up guys." Lyall said with a little chuckle of his own. Everyone laughed and Lyall took a seat next to Darius and Dominick.

"What are we eatin' today?" Lyall asked as he sat down.

"Pancakes with eggs and bacon." Dominick answered as he looked down at his plate.

"Looks delicious." Lyall said while he looked at the delicious food.

"It is." Kostas said before he took his fork and ate a piece of the pancake.

"Of course you know it's good. You've already eaten some of the food!" Darius replied as he pointed at him.

Kostas laughed and almost choked on his pancake. He swallowed his food and drank some orange juice. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself." Kostas replied with a big grin on his face.

"Come on Kostas, we were supposed to eat together." Lyall reminded Kostas.

Kostas just smiled and shrugged.

Cedrick walked towards everybody and carried a plate filled to the brim with pancakes, bacon, and eggs. " _Bon appetit_." Cedrick said as he placed the plate of food in front of Lyall.

"Thank you, Cedrick." Lyall replied as he looked down at the mouthwatering food. The smell of bacon and eggs overtook the smell of pancakes and Lyall started to get hungry.

"Well, I have to go guide the ship now. Have a nice meal everybody. Let me know if you need anything." Cedrick said as he walked towards an elevator that led to the cockpit.

Everyone thanked Cedrick as he entered the elevator. Cedrick stood in the middle of the elevator and the doors closed.

"Come on Sterling! Give us a speech!" Lyall ordered.

Everyone cheered in agreement.

"Well if you insist." Sterling said as he got out of his seat. Sterling pushed his chair towards the table and stood behind it, smiling as he looked at everyone who was waiting in anticipation.

"Well my brothers and sisters, we have gathered here today to have a delicious meal. Now I know that we didn't get to Mars but that's okay. It isn't about the destination, it's about the journey. Even though we slept for most of it." Sterling said with a little chuckle.

Every laughed and snickered in reaction.

"But I wouldn't have chosen anyone else to have rather gone to space with me then this grand crew. Now if everyone could please raise their glasses."

Everyone grabbed their glasses filled with orange juice and they rose them to the air.

"May God look over this beautiful ship and may God look over our souls. Thank you God for this wonderful meal and thank you God for letting me do what I love. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, God."

"Amen." Everyone said in unison as they tapped their glasses with one another. Sterling sat back down and wiped a tear from his eye.

"Well everyone, let's eat!" Lyall ordered. Everyone without hesitation started eating their food.

"This is so good." Darius said with a bit of pancake in his mouth.

"He cooks better than my mama!" Dominick joked.

"This is the best pancake I've ever eaten!" Lyall agreed as he took another piece of pancake with his fork and stuck it into his mouth.

"Hey, Lyall? What're you gonna do when we get back to Earth?" Dominick asked with great interest.

Everyone looked at the dirty blond haired man with wide eyes. Lyall swallowed his piece of pancake and started to think of an answer.

"I don't really know. I guess try to get on another mission to Mars."

"We're all going to try to go back to Mars." Darius said.

"Actually, I don't think I'm going to." Dominick revealed.

Everyone stopped their feasting and looked at Dominick with puzzled faces.

"Why not?" Kostas asked.

"I'm going to get married." Dominick answered with a big smile on his face.

Everyone whooped and cheered. Kostas got out of his seat and walked towards Dominick. "Ohhhh damn! Dom's gettin' hitched!" Kostas said as he high fived Dominick. Everyone cheered for a while but they eventually quieted down.

"What are you gonna do when we get back to Earth Lynn?" Dominick asked.

"Oh, nothing. I'll probably just go to my home and just watch TV." Lynn answered while she looked down at her food.

"That sounds very interesting!" Kostas sarcastically replied.

"Shut up Kostas." Lynn said with a little giggle.

"How about you Rolf?" Lynn asked as she looked at the man with the black beard.

"Same as you." Rolf answered with a grin.

"Darius?" Rolf asked as he turned his attention to the man with bronze skin.

"I don't really know. I guess just live a normal life until I get another mission to Mars." Darius answered.

Suddenly the intercom turned on and it made a beeping noise.

" _Ladies and gentlemen, we're approaching Earth. You might want to get up here quick."_ Cedrick said through the intercom.

"Thank you, Cedrick!" Lyall yelled so that Cedrick can hear him. The intercom beeped again, signaling that the intercom has turned off.

Everyone ate their food quickly and they went to the ladder leading to the cockpit. They climbed the frigid, metal ladder one after the other and then jumped off when they got to the entrance of the cockpit. Lyall took out his card and stuck it into the machine next to the big, circular white door. Lyall took out his card and the door hissed as it rolled counterclockwise slowly. The circular door stopped hissing as the door finished rotating.

Everyone walked through the doors and they all walked towards a massive window at the front of the cockpit. At the other side of the window was their beautiful home planet, Earth. Everyone stared with their mouths wide open, gasping and their eyes reflected the mostly blue planet in front of them.

"Alright, everybody. Get to your stations." Lyall ordered.

Everyone stopped gazing at the beautiful planet and they separated, heading towards their different stations. Lyall stayed and looked at the marvelous planet.

"God damn." Lyall said as he stared with his sky blue eyes in wonder.

The planet looked so big as they headed towards it. He could see North America, South America, and a whole bunch of fluffy, pure white, spiraling clouds.

"Magnificent." Cedrick said as he walked and stood next to Lyall.

"Hey Cedrick, can I ask you a question?" Lyall asked while he continued to look out the window.

"Of course sir, that's what I'm here for. To answer questions and to search for extraterrestrial life."

"What do you think happened? Why do you think NASA just canceled our mission to Mars like that?" Lyall asked as he still continued to look at the big planet in front of him.

"Now that's a question that I do not have an answer to. The name Walker's is really interesting me though."

"Do you think everything is fine over there?" Lyall asked as he turned his attention toward the cybernetic organism to his left.

"On Earth? Of course everything is fine. Nothing bad could've happened while we left."

"Sir!" Sterling yelled from his chair.

"Yes, Sterling?" Lyall asked as he turned around.

"I'm trying to contact Houston but they aren't answering."

"What?"

"Come over here, sir." Sterling said as he waved Lyall over with his right hand. Lyall walked over to Sterling and stood next to his chair. Sterling picked up a small microphone and put it close to his mouth.

"Houston, this is Aurora. We need coordinates to land. Houston, do you read?" Sterling asked through the microphone.

"See?"

"Something's not right, keep trying." Lyall answered. Lyall left Sterling and he walked slowly back towards Cedrick who was still looking at Earth.

"Something wrong?" Cedrick asked as Lyall got to him.

Lyall sighed and shook his head in disappointment."Yeah, Houston's not responding to our messages."

"That's very peculiar. They should be answering."

"Commander Lyall, what do you want me to do with Aurora?" Sterling asked.

Lyall turned around and saw that Sterling and everyone else was looking at him. Lyall turned to look at the big planet in front of them as he started to think of an answer. When he found one, he turned around and faced everyone.

"Move the ship towards Earth. We're going to land, even without their consent."

"That's against the rules. Are you sure?" Sterling asked with uncertainty.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Alright, sir." Sterling replied as he walked quickly back to his seat. Cedrick sat down in a seat while Lyall walked towards his own seat, which was next to Sterling's. Lyall sat down and he and everyone else strapped the seat belts connected to their chairs over their chest and stomach.

"Approaching Earth. Entering Earth's atmosphere in T minus, forty-five seconds." Sterling announced.

"How's the ship looking?" Darius asked as he looked at Eduardo.

"In great shape!"

"Locking down all doors." Lynn said as she pressed a green button in front of her.

Lyall looked at the small screen on the control panels in front of him and it showed the layout of Aurora. In between the doors was a green line, signaling that the doors were accessible. Suddenly, the line started to turn into red lines and eventually, all of them were red, signaling that all were no longer accessible.

"Thirty seconds." Sterling announced. Earth started to get bigger and bigger as they get closer.

"Hey Darius, see if they can hear us." Lyall ordered. Darius looked at his computer and picked up a small microphone.

"Hello Houston, this is Aurora. We're approaching Earth as we speak. Houston, do you have our landing coordinates?" Static answers\ed him and he slammed the microphone onto the floor. "God dammit! They're still not answering!" Darius yelled

"Twenty seconds." Sterling advised.

"Turning on heat shields." Rolf said as he turned a knob above his head. The diagram of the ship on the screen in front of Lyall now had a green outline around it, symbolizing that the heat shields were on.

" _This is gonna suck."_ Lyall thought.

Suddenly a woman's voice started to talk. It was _Aurora,_ talking with a voice that sounded authoritarian.

" _Entering Earth's atmosphere in t-minus ten seconds."_

" _Nine, eight."_

"Hold on everybody!" Lyall yelled.

" _Six, five."_

The Earth looked so big now. The deep vacuum of space couldn't be seen anymore.

" _Two, one."_

 _Aurora_ blasted into Earth's mesosphere. Everyone lunged forward in their seats but the seatbelts pulled them back, which stopped them from ejecting out of their seats. In the front of the window were tons of clouds blocking the window. _Aurora_ started to have turbulence and the ship started to bounce around.

" _Shit, shit!"_ Lyall thought.

Suddenly all the whiteness disappeared and instead, water and land appeared in its place.

Everyone yelled and cheered while Lyall exhaled a deep breath from his mouth.

"You okay sir?" Sterling asked with a grin on his face.

"Yes. I'm fine."

Darius picked up his microphone off the floor and put it close to his mouth.

"Houston, we're through the stratosphere. I repeat we're through the stratosphere. Houston, do you copy?"

Still no answer.

 _"God dammit."_ Lyall thought.

Aurora went through the air and got closer to the land below them. Eventually, tall buildings could be seen towering over the land.

"Is that New York City?!" Lyall asked with wide eyes.

"Yes sir, it is. The big apple, as you humans call it." Cedrick answered as he stared at the buildings.

"Oh shit!" Sterling suddenly yelled.

"What's wrong Sterling?" Lyall asked with worry.

"Look out the window, sir!"

Lyall took off the seatbelt covering his chest and walked slowly towards the window. Lyall looked out the window and his mouth dropped open.

Rotting bodies of humans lined up the streets. Small pools of dark red blood surrounded their rotting corpses. Cars were in the middle of the street, completely abandoned and left to rot. Boats were out on the water. But nobody was in them.

"Oh dear." Cedrick said as he stood next to Lyall.

Everyone slowly got out of their seats and walked up and saw the destruction that laid below their spacecraft.

"Oh my god."

"What the fuck?"

"Holy shit."

"What happened?"

"I don't know man."

Everyone stopped talking and stayed silent, gazing at the devastation and destruction that laid outside the window.

"Wait a minute. There are skyscrapers everywhere. Where do we land?" Sterling asked.

"We could land on the runway at JFK airport." Dominick suggested.

"That's actually not a bad idea." Darius agreed.

"So Lyall, are we landing on JFK?" Sterling asked the dirty blond haired man.

Lyall looked at the chaos that wasn't what New York used to be as he thought of an answer. Lyall made up his mind and turned towards Sterling.

"Let's land on JFK." Lyall answered.

"Right away sir." Sterling replied as he walked toward his station.

 _Aurora_ started to turn slowly and flew slowly towards John F. Kennedy airport.

"Everyone get to your seats. We don't know how soft this landing is going to be." Lyall ordered. Everyone ran to their seat and put on their seat belts again.

Lyall sat down in his seat next to Sterling and strapped his seatbelt over him. _Aurora_ got to JFK airport and started hovering over the runway. Lyall and Sterling both started to lower _Aurora_ towards the runway

"Steady, steady." Lyall said as he pulled the throttle level of the hovering ship down gently.

"Putting down the landing gear." Sterling advised as he pressed a red, square shaped button.

 _Aurora_ suddenly started to shake as the landing gear started to lower. The landing gear dropped all the way down and was now in place. The diagram of _Aurora_ on the small screen in front of Lyall now had a yellow line underneath the ship, signaling that the landing gear was down.

"Landing gear down." Sterling revealed.

"Let's land her." Lyall said as he pulled on the lever even further down, lowering the spacecraft even more.

"Landing in ten seconds." Sterling advised as he was looking at a countdown timer in front of him on a little screen. Lyall pulled the lever even further, making Aurora get further and further down and getting closer to the runway.

"Five seconds."

Lyall started to pull the lever up slowly so that _Aurora_ wouldn't slam into the ground.

"Three, two, one."

Aurora landed onto the ground with a thud. The ship rocked back and forth but eventually stabilized.

"We made it. Welcome to Earth. Or at least, what's left of it." Sterling said.

"Unlocking all doors." Lynn advised as she pressed a button. The screen with the layout of the ship changed the doors from red to green.

"Turning off heat shields." Rolf advised as he turned the switch above him back into its regular position. The green outline of the ship disappeared on the diagram of the ship.

Everyone got out of their chairs and met up in the center of the cockpit

"Well, what do we do now?" Darius asked.

"We need to figure out what the hell is going on. Darius, stay on the ship and see if you can contact NASA." Lyall answered.

"You got it." Darius replied as he went to the same place he sat before.

"Eduardo and Elwynn, stay and keep an eye on this ship. Make sure nothing broke when we landed." Lyall ordered.

"You got it." Elwynn replied.

"The rest of you, get your guns, we're gonna walk around and see if we can figure out what's going on." Lyall ordered.

"Alright, let's go!" Kostas replied.

"Hey wait!" Eduardo yelled.

"What's wrong?" Lyall asked.

Eduardo ran to a cabinet next to where he sat and took out two jet black walkie talkies. He ran back with them and handed one to Lyall.

"Just in case things go bad. We'll also look through Cedrick's eyes from our computers and tell you if we see anything weird." Eduardo said.

"That's a good idea. Thanks, Eduardo." Lyall replied as he took the jet black walkie talkie that Eduardo handed him.

Lyall, Dominick, Rolf, Kostas, Cedrick, Sterling, and Lynn got out of the cockpit and went down the ladder towards the very bottom of _Aurora_. When they all finished descending the ladder to the bottom of _Aurora,_ they got off and are engulfed in almost complete darkness. The only light they had was the light coming from above them where the center of _Aurora_ was. Lyall and his group walked down the hallway which was just like the menacing and eerie hallway he walked through a couple minutes prior. The vents made clanking noises as Lyall and the rest of the group stepped on them. Lyall slid his hand on the pipes that ran throughout the hexagonal walls and then stopped at a big, ink black door. Lyall took out his card and tried to find the machine to put it in. But the red light wasn't working and he couldn't see where the machine was.

"I can't see where the damn machine is." Lyall said.

"Allow me, sir." Cedrick replied as he held out his hand for the card.

Lyall handed Cedrick the card and Cedrick found the machine in a second. He inserted the card and took it out. The big door hissed as it slid counterclockwise.

"How did you find it?" Lyall asked as the door slid and hissed.

"I have night vision." The cybernetic organism answered.

"Oh. Good to know."

The door came to a complete stop and suddenly a light shined bright.

"God damn!" Dominick yelled as he covered his eyes with his arm.

Lyall squinted his eyes and walked into the room. Lyall slowly got used to the light and opened them up slowly. The room was more inviting than the dark hallway that they passed.

"Holy shit!" Kostas yelled as he ran towards a wall lined up with weapons. Kostas grabbed a flamethrower from the lineup of weapons and looked at Lyall with a grin on his face. "I can work with this."

"Kostas, put that down. Hopefully, we're not going to need to kill anything." Lyall ordered.

"Why do we need weapons if we aren't going to kill anything?" Rolf asked as he looked at the weapons.

"Never know. This place looks like a wasteland and anything could be lurking around." Lyall answered.

Everyone grabbed an assault rifle. These assault rifles weren't your regular type of assault rifles. The bullets were specifically made to work in any condition on any planet. If the gravity was too high or too low it didn't matter, the bullets would move just like normal. You just had to switch the type of bullet to shoot out from the right side of the gun. Everyone walked to a big jet black door and Lyall put his card into the machine.

" _God please look over us."_ Lyall thought.

Lyall breathed in through his nose and exhaled through his mouth as he took out the card. The light turned green and the door hissed loudly. On the other side of the door was the wasteland of what used to be Earth. The jet black door started ascending upwards and a platform started to eject from the floor of the room and towards the outside world, making a ramp for them to walk down. The door continued to open and Lyall started to wonder about what could've happened to Earth while he was away. But he was completely clueless. The big door finished ascending and Lyall looked outside from inside Aurora. Big airplanes were connected to terminals next to the airport. Some looked in good shape while others looked in ruins. The sky started to look slightly dark as if it was going to rain soon.

Lyall started walking from the safety of Aurora and onto the ramp that led to what used to be a busy airport.

" _Time to find out what the hell is going on."_ Lyall thought.


	2. The first encounter

A/N: Thank you for checking out the second chapter of Space Walkers! I've been working really hard on this over the past month and I'm very excited to share this chapter with everyone. A review or follow would be greatly appreciated as it lets me know how to improve my chapters and it also motivates me to keep writing. As for the next chapter of Space Walkers, it will be released on the 16th of June. Anyway, hopefully, you enjoy this second chapter and hopefully, you'll stick around for the next one.

 _Chapter 2_

 _The first encounter_

 _"Nothing is impossible to kill. It's just that sometimes after you kill something you have to keep shooting it until it stops moving"_

 _― Mira Grant_

* * *

" _ **So do you know why I called you here?" The brown-suited man looked at Lyall with a look of questioning.**_

" _ **No, I don't. Did I do something wrong?" Lyall asked, looking back at the man behind his desk.**_

" _ **No, you didn't. In fact," The man got off of his chair and sat at the corner of his jet black desk, looking down at Lyall. "In fact, you've been doing well. So well in fact, that you need to go on another space mission." The man said as he took his brown boater hat off his head and placed it next to him.**_

" _ **Another one?" Lyall asked back, not really too happy about the idea.**_

" _ **You don't want another mission? What's the matter? The man asked while he had a puzzled face.**_

" _ **No, I love going to space, it's just that it's always us going to either the moon or just going around Earth. It would be nice to do something new, you know?" Lyall answered, continuing to look at the brown suited man looking down at him. The man actually smiled and went back behind his desk.**_

" _ **Then you're going to enjoy this mission." The man said as he pulled on a drawer and pulled out a folder.**_

" _ **What's the mission?" Lyall asked, curious at what was in the folder.**_

" _ **Take a look for yourself." The gray-haired man said as he held the folder out to Lyall. Lyall grabbed the folder and placed it on his lap, the man sitting back at the corner of hi**_ _ **s desk as he did so.**_

 _ **Lyall opened the folder slowly, seeing a massive symbol on the first page. Lyall opened the folder completely and looked at the magnificent symbol.**_

 _ **In the middle of the big circle was a spacecraft that Lyall had never seen before. It was different than any other space shuttle he had previously seen. Instead of being white like the others, it was actually lead gray, it had long wings and looked massive. The spaceship headed upwards and below it was a red and orange planet. The circle was surrounded by words that read Aurora I and NASA.**_

 _ **At the top of the page read in bold, "Aurora I, The first mission to Mars."**_

" _ **You can't be serious," Lyall said as he stared at the brown suited man that smiled back at him.**_

" _ **Oh, I'm serious."**_

" _ **Mars? Do we even have the technology for that?" Lyall asked, curious at what the man would say to him.**_

" _ **We already have the technology for it. We just need a good team. And that starts with you Lyall, as the commander of Aurora."**_

 _ **Lyall's mouth dropped and he couldn't believe what he heard. "Are you serious? I'm going to be the commander of Aurora I?"**_

 _ **The man nodded "Yes you are. I've seen you in training. You are the best astronaut we have. You do everything perfectly, encourage the other astronauts to keep going, you solve problems, you're a natural born leader Lyall, we need you to command this mission."**_

 _ **Lyall couldn't believe what he was hearing. And then he saw the man hold out his hand. "So what do you say, Lyall? Will you take command of Aurora and become one of the first humans to step on Mars?"**_

 _ **Lyall felt like he was dreaming. He worked hard at being an astronaut and now he would get the chance to lead his own crew. Lyall reached out his hand and grabbed it, now knowing that this wasn't a dream and it was all real. Lyall shook the man's hand and nodded. "Yes, sir I will."**_

 _ **Lyall stopped shaking his hand and the man sat back behind his desk, smiling as he did so. "You're gonna do great things Lyall, we're lucky to have you."**_

" _ **Thank you, sir," Lyall answered as he tried to hold the excitement in him.**_

" _ **Now, go back to training, we'll fill you in more as we further plan Aurora I." The man said as he waved Lyall away.**_

 _ **Lyall walked to the door he entered earlier and looked back at the man that sat in his desk "Thank you again, sir, I won't let you down." Lyall said as he turned the doorknob and opened the door.**_

" _ **I know you won't." The man answered as he put his boater hat back on.**_

 _ **Lyall nodded and walked out the door and let it close behind him.**_

* * *

The deafening sound of the hissing continued as the jet black platform and the same colored door continued to open and spread outwards. As the doors continued to open, the giant, once very busy JFK airport, greeted them. Massive Boeing 747's were all stopped next to the airport, waiting for people to enter them through the porcelain white jet bridges connecting to the airport. But those people would never come aboard, and the next flights for all those planes were now delayed, forever.

The deafening hissing began to downturn, slowly dissolving little by little until it completely vanished. Lyall's ears were almost completely deaf. Maybe he shouldn't have stood so close to the doorway.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Lyall could faintly hear his friend Dominick as he asked his question. He quickly shook his head in hopes of regaining his ability to hear. To Lyall's surprise, he regained his hearing in a matter of seconds. Lyall stopped shaking his head and the room moved quickly around him. But then the shaking came to an end and all was well. For now.

Lyall remembered what his dear friend and crew member had said and walked out of their massive spaceship _Aurora_ and onto the jet black ramp that opened with an ear-piercing hiss that no snake could even get close to making.

As he stepped down the ramp, it made clunking noises like as if he was back in that dark hallway that was in the spacecraft he just stepped out of. As Lyall walked slowly down the ramp, he noticed the sky overhead.

The light blue sky was fighting a battle against the charcoal gray clouds. And the latter was completely dominating the skies, making the airport and as far as the eye can see, turn dull and dreary. Small drops of rain fell from the sky, it was like as if the light blue skies were bawling their eyes out, as they knew their battle was pretty much done and over with.

Lyall was glad he had his jacket but there was an issue. His snow-white coat didn't have a hoodie, which made Lyall's and the rest of his crew's heads completely exposed to the weeping tears from the sky.

"You know, I thought we would be walking down this ramp on Mars. Not the JFK airport." Dominick said as he followed Lyall down the ramp.

"Yeah, no kidding." Lyall agreed as he glanced back and saw the hazelnut skinned man shaking his head. Dominick sighed and made eye contact with the dirty blonde haired man looking back at him.

"Did you see all those bodies on the streets?" Dominick asked as he continued to keep his eyes on Lyall's. Lyall sighed and turned his head, leaving Dominick's gaze. "Yeah, I did."

"What do you think killed 'em?" Dominick asked as he stared at Lyall's dirty blonde head of hair. Lyall didn't answer him and just continued to walk down the ramp. When he gets to the end of the ramp and puts his feet on the runway, he turns his head and locks his sky blue eyes with Dominick's amber brown eyes.

"I don't know man. But whatever it was, I hope it's gone." Lyall answered as more people started to get off the ramp.

"Let's just hope it wasn't because of a human." Sterling chimed in as he got off the ramp.

Lyall turned his gaze away from Dominick and looked at Sterling.

"That's not possible, is it?" Lyall asked.

"I don't know man, a lot of crazy people were roaming around before we left, I doubt that they just disappeared," Sterling answered.

"You right about that. I remember the day before we left Earth to go to Mars, I was watching the news when I saw this one story, it was about this guy from Macon, but I can't remember his name. All I remember is that he was a professor at a university and they were sayin' that he killed a state senator."

"God damn," Lyall said as he shook his head in disbelief.

"But didn't he kill the state senator because the guy was sleepin' with his wife or something?" Sterling asked.

"Doesn't matter if that was true, still doesn't make it right," Dominick answered as he shook his head in disagreement.

"What happened to the wife? Did he kill her too?" Lyall asked with curiosity.

"No, he didn't. He let her live and he got caught by the police." Sterling answered as he took his gaze from Dominick and stared at him.

Suddenly their argument got interrupted by Lyall's walkie talkie.

 _"Hey Lyall, I don't mean to rush you but, are you in the airport yet?"_

Lyall took out the walkie talkie from his waist and put it close to his lips.

"No, not yet Eduardo. But we're going there now."

 _"Alright, let us know when you get there."_

"Will do," Lyall said as he placed his jet black walkie-talkie back to his waist.

"I don't see a big entrance here. How the hell are we getting in there?" Rolf asked.

"I see some stairs leading up to that airplane over there. We could go up and get inside. Then we can walk through that bridge connecting the plane to the airport." Lyall answered.

"Sounds like you've got everything figured out. No wonder they picked you to lead us." Rolf responded with a grin.

Lyall returned that grin with one of his own and waved his hand from the group to the airplane, signaling for them to start walking towards the airplane.

As they marched towards the airplane, it's true form started to reveal itself. The cherry red, bottom half of the plane had some narrow holes in it. As Lyall walked closer and closer to the damaged vessel, he continued to study the holes when suddenly, he felt something crunching underneath his boot, like as if he was walking on potato chips. Lyall quickly raised up his hand and everyone behind him stopped in their tracks.

"What's wrong?" Lynn asked with her head tilted in great confusion.

Lyall didn't answer her and instead, looked down at his feet. As he analyzed the floor he saw a massive abundance of small pieces of glass. Curious, he kneeled down and carefully picked up a small fragment of a piece of glass and put it close to his sky blue eyes. As he analyzed it he turned it slowly with his right hand.

Dominick walked up next to Lyall and stood next to him, staring at the broken glass all spread out along the bottom of the massive Boeing 747. "Did that glass come from the plane?"

Lyall didn't know the answer and decided to take a look at the windows of the plane. As he got back up, he dropped the piece of glass and let it join with the rest of them. The dirty blonde haired man walked away from the enormous airplane and looked at the very small windows. Compared to the sheer size of the massive airliner, the windows looked very minuscule. But as Dominick hypothesized, the glass that was once in the window was now gone and instead of it being a window, it was now just a hollow hole leading inward to the airplane and leading outward, towards the world around it.

"Yeah, it came from the windows up there," Lyall confirmed.

"How did it just break like that? Could there be someone in there?" Dominick asked.

"I don't know man. But I don't think that anybody that's in there would just break the windows." Lyall answered as he continued to study the broken window.

"Good point."

Suddenly, something moved hastily from one window and continued running down the plane. As it ran through the airplane, Lyall could see a little blur of blue as the figure continued to appear at each window as it swiftly passed them.

"Holy shit! Someone's up there!" Lyall revealed.

"Really?! What did the person look like?"

"I couldn't see much, but I could've sworn I saw a little bit of blue," Lyall answered as he continued to look at where the mysterious figure once was.

"We've got to go up there and see if they know what the hell's going on," Dominick said.

"That's not a good idea, what if they just shoot us?" Lyall asked as he turned his head, looking away from the Boeing 747 and putting his attention toward the man to his left.

"Lyall, we have guns." Dominick pulled on the strap that lined up his snow-white jacket and the assault rifle behind him moved up his shoulder and into his two hands. "We can just kill 'em if they try anything."

"But they'll kill at least one of us and I'm not letting that happen." Lyall retorted as he pulled his strap and let the gun sling itself over his shoulder and into his hands.

"Well, how else are we gonna get into the airport without anyone dying?" Dominick asked.

Suddenly, an idea popped into Lyall's head and, by the look Dominick was giving him, it seemed he had the same idea as well. They both turned their heads towards the one thing that couldn't die if it got shot.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Lyall asked as he stared at Cedrick as he and the rest of the group were still studying the pieces of glass on the floor.

"Oh yeah," Dominick answered.

"Hey guys, come over here!" Lyall ordered as he waved them to him.

Cedrick and the rest of the group started walking towards them and Lyall and Dominick turned and faced each other.

"Are you gonna make Cedrick go in there and scan the whole thing?" Dominick asked as he faced his leader.

"Of course I am." A grin appeared on Lyall's face as he answered Dominick's question. As Lyall finished speaking, the rest of the crew got to them and waited to hear what Lyall wanted.

"Cedrick, you have a scanning system right?" Lyall asked as he stared at the cybernetic organism.

"Yes sir, I have a targeting system and infrared scanning."

"Alright well, Cedrick, I need you to do something for us. The only way for us to get to the airport is through this plane, but we don't know if it's safe for us. So can you go and analyze the inside just to make sure everything is fine?"

Cedrick looked at the gigantic airplane and then back at the person who asked for his help.

"Of course, sir," Cedrick answered as his dimly lit eyes turned from a regular shade red to a shade of cherry red. Cedrick turned away from the group, leaving them and heading towards the airstairs connected to the open door in the middle of the Boeing 747. As he hiked up the stairs, Lyall and the rest of the crew waited at the bottom of the stairs.

When Cedrick got into the room, he projected a bunch of red laser grids from his eyes and they were all around him. Lyall watched in awe as Cedrick scanned the inside of the massive plane.

After a couple of seconds, the laser grids disappeared and out came Cedrick from the interior of the white and cherry red plane.

"How does it look Cedrick?" Lyall asked as he looked at the cybernetic organism standing over them at the top of the airstairs.

"It's safe to enter. But it's in very bad condition."

"What do you mean?"

"Come look for yourself," Cedrick said as he disappeared into the airplane.

Lyall held the gun with both of his hands. Even though Cedrick said it was safe, he didn't want to take any chances, and it seemed like everyone else was doing the same. They stepped slowly up the airstairs, eagerly waiting for what laid inside the enormous jet.

As Lyall got to the top of the airstairs, he saw that the inside of the jet was almost completely pitch black, the only light coming into the inside of the Boeing 747 were from the outside world through the broken windows which, as previously stated, was completely covered from above by charcoal gray clouds.

Lyall moved his right pointer finger slowly down, past the trigger, and found the small, circular button he was looking for. Lyall aimed the gun at the entrance of the jet and pressed the button, which activated the mounted flashlight connected to the front of the assault rifle, just below the front sight.

Suddenly, Lyall got hit by something. But he didn't get hit by a human. In fact, it wasn't by anything he could see. He was hit by a disgusting smell that could only be described as abominable.

"God damn!" Dominick muffled as he covered his mouth and nose with his snow-white jacket, holding it up with his right hand.

"Can you not smell that Cedrick?" Lyall asked as he tried to fight off the awful smell.

"No I can't, I'm a cybernetic organism, I have no sense of smell or taste," Cedrick stated as he stared at everyone with a straight face.

Lyall couldn't win the battle between him and the disgusting smell and quickly covered his mouth and nose. "Where's that smell coming from?" Lyall asked as he continued to cover part of his face.

"I don't know sir. If you can describe the smell then maybe I can assist you."

"Anybody know what this smells like?" Lyall asked as he searched the room for an answer. But all he saw were people with their jackets covering their mouths and noses, shaking their heads side to side, answering his question. Lyall returned his gaze to the nonhuman man in front of him.

"Well, you're going to have to find where you smell it the most." Cedrick's cherry red, dimly lit pupils, dimmed a little bit more, turning into a regular shade of red, as he replied to Lyall.

Lyall took a deep breath and pulled the snow-white jacket covering his mouth and nose and was quickly hit by the same fatal smell again. Lyall gagged and almost threw up the pancakes that he had eaten earlier. Lyall held his hands to his mouth and took another deep breath. Again, the metallic smell hit him with a force so strong that he couldn't bare it any longer.

"Guys, I can't take this any longer, let's get out of here!" Lyall ordered.

Lyall started leading his crew down the long cabin of the Boeing 747. As he walked, he flashed his flashlight at what was around him. And it was a complete mess.

Seats were discolored from their original dark blue color because of the many scratches on them, some had holes in the middle of the seats, and some weren't even there at all.

As Lyall aimed his gun to the roof of the airliner, the flashlight revealed open porcelain white storage bins filled with nothing but dust. But something caught Lyall's eyes as he continued to walk through the cabin.

Narrow holes were scattered throughout the roof, the same exact holes that were at the bottom of the same jet they were in. But, as Lyall continued to study the holes as he walked, he received the biggest hit of the disgusting smell and it enclosed all around his face. Lyall was about to cover his face when all of a sudden, he slipped and fell backward onto the floor.

Everyone gasped and quickly ran over to Lyall.

"Hey, you okay?" Lynn asked as she kneeled next to Lyall, who laid exactly where he landed.

"Yeah." Lyall winced at the pain in his back as he slowly raised himself from a laid position to a sitting position.

"What did you slip on?" Sterling asked behind Lyall, away from Lyall's view.

"I don't know." Lyall moved his hand around the floor and suddenly, he felt something he didn't expect. His hand touched something that felt, to Lyall, like something sticky. Lyall almost freaked out when he felt it and quickly pulled away from what he had touched, gasping as he did so.

"What happened?" Sterling asked with a very hushed voice.

"Turn on your flashlight!" Lyall ordered, still continuing to gasp from what he felt.

Almost instantly, Sterling activated the mounted flashlight connected to his gun and aimed it at Lyall. When Lyall looked at the now lit up floor, Lyall was disgusted and he could feel the pancakes coming all the way to the back of his throat.

"Holy shit." Sterling's mouth dropped as he looked at the cabins floors.

The floor was completely covered in a deep red substance. But the floor wasn't supposed to be red at all. In fact, it was originally a regular blue carpet with no red intended to be there. But now it looked as if someone knocked over a can of paint which had a dark shade of red and a disgusting smell with it, spilling it onto the same place Lyall sat in now.

Lyall stopped looking at the mysterious liquid and gazed to his right, finding the gun he dropped right next to a damaged chair. Lyall lunged his arms towards the gun and reached it with the tip of his finger. He pulled the gun slightly, making the gun pull away from the chair and towards him. Lyall lunged his arm again and grabbed the handle of the gun and pulled it towards him. Lyall grabbed the gun with both of his hands and lit the floor even more, making the dark red liquid reflect the light shined upon it. But, as Lyall raised his gun slightly, he caught a glimpse of what looked to be bloody human hands, like as if a person was crawling over the blue carpet, trying to find help.

Lyall smelt the disgusting smell again and tried to cover his face. But as he was raising his hand, he could smell the abominable smell more than he had ever did. Lyall picked up the gun with his left hand and aimed it at his right hand, revealing that the same liquid on the floor, was almost completely covering his hand.

"Holy shit!" Lyall yelled as he stared at his dark red hand.

"What is that?" Dominick gasped as he stared at the wrongly colored hand.

"Let me see." Cedrick walked towards the man that had his hand almost completely covered in the wine red substance.

Cedrick held out his hand and Lyall put his arm on it. Cedrick's hand felt like ice as he wrapped his fingers around Lyall's arm. Lyall's red pupils turned back into a cherry red shade and the red grid appeared again, but this time, it was on Lyall's hand which, was a darker shade of red than the red from Cedrick's pupils.

Cedrick held the red grid on Lyall's hands for a couple of seconds. He then stood still without saying a word, his cherry red eyes turning back into its original shade. After a while, he made a face that seemed like he didn't understand. "Hmm, that's peculiar."

"What is?" Lyall asked as he looked up at the cybernetic organism that towered over him.

"My systems say that it has the same DNA as human blood, yet it's not the same color as regular human blood should be," Cedrick revealed as he continued with his confused face. But then, he looked down at the dirty blonde haired man that was looking up at him. "Would you describe the smell as metallic, by any chance?"

"Now that you mention it, it does actually." Lyall was still not getting what Cedrick was trying to say.

"Well, they say that blood smells metallic because of the high quantity of iron in the red blood cells. That means that what you just slipped on, was blood, but not a regular human's blood that's for sure." Cedrick answered.

Lyall shivered at that. Slipping was bad enough but on blood? That just made Lyall completely disgusted. Lyall smelled the metallic smell again and realized that the blood was still on his hand. He wiped the blood off both of his hands and onto his jacket.

After a couple of seconds, Lyall stopped rubbing his hands on his jacket and shined the flashlight on his right hand. A lot of the blood was gone but his hand was still kind of red and he could still smell the same disgusting smell. He grabbed the gun with his right hand and shined the light on his left hand and it looked the same as his right hand.

Lyall sighed and suddenly, felt someone's hands going under and over his arms. "Time to get up Lyall." Dominick raised Lyall by his arms, groaning slightly as he did so.

"Thank you". Lyall thanked as he got to his feet.

Suddenly, a weird noise started near them. "Hell… you… er...all.." Lyall took out his walkie-talkie and the sound got louder. "Hello?" Lyall asked as he put the walkie-talkie close to his lips. "Wh…. on….. ar…. You…." The transmission suddenly cut out, leaving everyone in complete silence, Lyall groaning as a piece of the walkie talkie fell onto the ground with a slight thud.

"Well great. Now we can't talk to them." Lynn shook her head in frustration. "This is all fucked."

Lyall kneeled down to pick up his gun, smelling the blood stronger as he got closer. Lyall quickly got up as he grabbed his gun, not wanting the smell to make him throw up. Lyall shined the light from his gun towards the blood that he laid in just before.

Hand prints were in the blood, which was from Lyall's own doing. Lyall raised his gun a little higher, lighting up the rest of the cabin ahead of them, revealing more hand prints, leading all the way up to the door that led to the jetbridge.

"Whatever that thing was, it didn't die here." Everyone peered over Lyall's shoulders, staring at the trail of bloody handprints leading up to the door, almost like arrows telling them where the exit was.

"We need to follow them." Lyall shined his flashlight towards the deep red blood, carefully raising his right foot as he did so. Lyall slowly placed his right foot down and put his left foot up and over the patch of blood. "Watch your step," Lyall advised as he placed his left foot down slowly.

The cabin lit up quickly as they all activated the mounted flashlights connected to their guns. Lyall shined the trail in front of him, analyzing it as he did so, not making the same mistake of not looking at where he was walking. The handprints appeared to be getting lighter in color the more Lyall and the rest of his crew continued to walk down the cabin.

After continuing to follow the bloody hand prints for quite some time, they finally got to the end of the cabin. The door to the cockpit of the Boeing 747 was closed and as Lyall tried to open it, the door didn't even budge.

 _Locked. But maybe that's a good thing._

Lyall looked to his left, towards the door that led to the jet bridge. The trail of blood and bloody handprints continued from the airplane and around the corner of the jet bridge. Lyall and his crew continued to follow the trail, not knowing what laid ahead of them. As Lyall walked through the dark, porcelain white jet bridge, it reminded him of the hallway that was back in their spaceship, with its dark hallways and eerie feeling.

Suddenly, raindrops started to hit the top of the jet bridge, it sounded like as if someone was knocking on the roof from outside. But suddenly the raindrops got louder and louder with more and more raindrops coming from the sky. As Lyall and his crew turned the corner, a loud roar came from the clouds outside of the jet bridge.

Lyall took his eyes off the blood trail and saw that the exit of the jet bridge was right in front of them. But at the end of the jet bridge in front of them, laid the end of the blood trail, and there laid a figure face down, completely motionless.

"What is that?" Lyall asked as he continued to analyze the dead carcass on the floor from afar.

"I don't know man. But whatever it is, its blood really reeks." Sterling answered as he followed the dirty blond haired man in front of him.

"You got that right. That smell almost made me throw up." Lyall shivered as he remembered the disgusting smell. He could still smell the metallic scent but not nearly as much as inside of the massive jet they left behind.

As they got to the exit of the jet bridge, they were greeted by a loud bang from the thunder in the clouds. The bloody trail of handprints still continued past the exit and they continued to follow it.

Lyall could hear some of the people behind him gasp. "What's wrong guys?" Lyall asked as he continued to look in front of him and not towards his crew.

"Uhhh, Lyall, look to your right." Lyall looked to his right and his mouth completely dropped.

"Holy shit." Lyall gasped in complete disbelief.

To their right, tons of chairs, glass, and pieces of the roof laid all across the pure white floors. But what came from the roof, was one of the craziest things Lyall saw in his life.

A massive Airbus A320 was coming in from the roof, it's nose completely rammed into the floor. The hole in the roof let the rain pour itself into the airport, making a puddle in the middle of the floor. The plane's left wing was on the floor, completely disconnected from where it should've been. The front half of the plane was barely hanging onto the rest of the plane, it tilted down and looked like it could fall off at any moment. On the other side of the plane was what used to be a big long pane of glass that went down the majority of the terminal, But it was now just an empty hole that allowed the winds to blow the pouring rain from the outside into the abandoned JFK airport. The plane's right wing was still hanging by a thread onto the rest of the plane, the wing creaking and moving slightly as the pouring rain weighed it down.

Lyall turned his head away from the horrific scene and turned to the other one to his left. The thing on the ground actually looked human. A blue shirt tried to cover the man's body, but rips and tears were all over his shirt, showing parts of its skin. But what made Lyall puzzled was not of the tears in his shirt but of the man's skin.

It didn't look like the normal skin color you'd see every day. Its skin looked pale, like as if all of the life was sucked out of him. The dark red blood also appeared to be coming from multiple holes in it's back, which looked like the same holes as the ones in and under the Boeing 747 they were in just before.

Lyall took his gun and poked the dead carcass on the floor, making sure that what laid on the floor was in fact dead. The corpse didn't even move an inch as Lyall poked him, showing that it was truly dead. Cedrick walked over to Lyall who was still poking the dead body with the tip of his gun. "I'm pretty sure it's dead sir." The dirty blonde haired man stopped poking at the cadaver and pulled his gun back towards himself, leaving the dead corpse at rest. "I know, it's just that I've never seen anything like this before. This thing has clothes, was it a human?" Lyall asked as he looked at the cyborg to his left, who's dimly lit red pupils already started to turn back into the cherry red shade.

"Well, what else wears clothes? It's a human but I'll scan the body just to get some more information about what happened to him." A red grid was suddenly projected over the remains of the body, moving slowly up and down, analyzing every single inch of the dead human.

Everyone stopped looking at the Airtrain A320 that was rammed into the airport and turned their gaze towards what the bloody trail led them towards.

"That thing's got clothes but it doesn't look human to me," Dominick said as he analyzed the body that was being scanned.

"Yeah, I know. Crazy, ain't it?" Lyall asked as he also studied the dead body on the floor.

"Turn the body over," Cedrick ordered as he continued to scan the corpse. Lyall grabbed the left arm of the dead human and pulled on it, turning the dead carcass onto it's back, revealing something very unpleasant.

There was an empty spot where the bottom of his mouth should've been. Some of the bloody tooth's were missing while others were hanging only by a tiny thread. Only one of the tooth's were actually still properly connected to its place.

The man's eyes were both open, but the left eye was completely battered, like as if it had been stabbed by something or _someone._

"Holy shit." Lyall muffled as his mouth was covered by his hand that used to be completely covered in the blood of the man that laid in front of him.

The red grids covering the man's dead corpse disappeared, Cedrick's pupils going back to its regular shade of red at the same time, signaling that his scan was complete. Cedrick stood in silence for a couple seconds, gathering up the information he just got from his scanning.

"So what did you find?" Lyall asked as he looked at the cybernetic organism for the answer.

"Well, it seems that he was slashed by something, which explains the scratches on his back. But he survived the attack and started crawling, most likely for some help. But then he was kicked in the leg, hence the slight bend in the leg, and he was then stabbed by a knife of some sort, hence the hole coming from the back of the head and all they way through the left pupil." Lyall looked at the blood trail that led all the way from the gateway of the jet bridge to the dead man on the floor as Cedrick told him what happened to the poor man. "Who could've done this?" Lyall asked as he finished studying the trail of blood and focused on the cyborg next to him.

"Hey!" Lyall turned his head towards Dominick who yelled for apparently no reason. But Dominick was looking towards the plane that went through the terminal again. Lyall turned his head towards the Airbus A320 when suddenly, he saw something that wasn't there before.

A figure stood in the distance, facing them with their head covered by a dark blue hood and a same blue colored bubble jacket. The person quickly turned away from them, the red scarf with white and gray stripes wrapped around the person's neck waving through the air as they did so, and the person started running away from them.

"Hey stop!" Lyall yelled as the person continued to run, not complying with Lyall's orders.

Lyall suddenly felt the urge to go after the person and he started running after the hooded figure.

"Hey Lyall, what are you doing?!" Dominick's yell sounded faint as Lyall ran away from them. "I have to follow them, they might know what's going on!" Lyall yelled back as he continued chasing the mysterious person stalking them.

Lyall ran over the Airbus A320's left wing as he continued to run, feeling ton's of miniature drops of water falling from the hole in the roof caused by the airplane, and towards Lyall's dirty blonde hair. Lyall turned his head to look at the destruction of what used to be a fully functional airliner, seeing what looked to Lyall, like a bunch of people still seated in their chairs, completely motionless. Lyall wanted to go back and look but he had no time for that now. Lyall turned his attention back to where he was running towards when he noticed that the person he was chasing could no longer be seen.

Lyall continued to run, his boots crunching the already broken glass on the floor and the winds pushing the pouring rain towards Lyall's face. As he continued to run, another roaring thunder came from the charcoal gray sky and in the distance, a lightning strike accompanied the thunderous roar. Lyall could hear glass crunching behind him as his crew followed him as they set out to find whoever was watching them.

Lyall got to the end of the terminal and was only greeted by another abandoned part of the JFK airport. As Lyall stopped to catch his breath, the rest of the group caught up to him, also catching their breath as they stopped behind him.

"Did you get them?" Dominick asked as he gasped for air. Lyall turned to face the hazelnut skinned man behind him. "No, I didn't. They got away."

"Which way did they go?" Lyall turned around to look at the place where he last saw the hooded figure running away from them. "I don't remember where they went, they just vanished."

"Well, that person couldn't have gone far. Let's start looking for 'em." Dominick suggested as he walked past Lyall, already starting to begin his search.

"Good idea. Everyone spread out and search this place. We need to find out what's going on." Lyall ordered. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement, also spreading out, starting their search as well.

Lyall grabbed his gun and started aiming around the dark, noiseless, and the completely dilapidated room they were in. Waving above them, surprisingly still connected to the roof, was the star spangled banner of the United States Of America, which hanged vertically downward towards the center of the room, with it's red and white stripes going downwards as well. Even though the bottom of the flag was ripped and had holes in it, it still continued to wave proudly even through the entire mess that was around it.

Lyall turned his gun's mounted flashlight towards what was behind the beautiful flag and a mezzanine could be seen. Light reflected off the glass handrails that were meant to keep people from falling off the balcony, some of them were sturdy while other were broken completely. Lyall pointed his gun towards the bottom of the platform in search of a way up but there was no stairway to climb up.

 _Whoever that person was, they couldn't have gone up there._

"Hey! We aren't trying to hurt you! We just want to know what's going on!" Lyall's voice echoed throughout the noiseless room. "Did anybody find anything?"

"Nah, not really. Just destruction." Dominick sighed as he shined his flashlight across the floor.

Lyall started walking around the rest of the gigantic room, shining the room around him as he did so. The light revealed that there were retractable stanchions all over the floor, like as if there was an earthquake and all of them fell to the pure white floor. As Lyall walked over the stanchions on the floor, he noticed that in front of him, a small, coin gray metal detector. Lyall shined his light across the metal detector, the light reflecting off the green and red circular lights at the top of the metal detector.

 _Might be a good idea to not walk through that._

Lyall moved his gun away from the metal detector, making it go back into the shadows. The lights from the rest of the _Aurora_ crew members danced as they searched around for the mysterious hooded figure. But that person couldn't be found. It was like as if the person just vanished. Or maybe they weren't _real_ at all.

Lyall started walking towards one of his crew members searching around, not able to see their face since the room was extremely dark, when suddenly, the person Lyall was walking towards, fell backward, the light coming from his gun dancing around quickly as it too fell on the ground. "Holy shit!" The man yelled as he fell down.

Lyall ran towards the man down on the floor and could hear the man yelling in the darkness. Lyall got to the man and pointed his gun at the man as other members of the crew got there as well, joining Lyall as they flashed their lights towards the man on the floor. But what they saw was like something from a horror movie.

A woman with very pale skin was on top of Dominick, crawling over his body and towards his face. The ripped shirt wrinkled as the women wriggled towards her target.

"What the fuck?" Lyall asked as he pointed his gun at the women on top of Dominick.

The pale women looked at Lyall, her long, brown and black hair covering her eyes and only showing her nose and open mouth. Her teeth glistened with the wine red liquid that Lyall knew too well. The women returned towards her target and plunged her mouth towards Dominick's face. Dominick pushed the women back, making her fall to the floor.

"Shoot her!" Dominick yelled as he stared at the dirty blonde haired man pointing his gun at him. The women quickly went right back on top of Dominick, pushing him back into the ground. The women tried to chomp on his face but couldn't because Dominick pushed her chest up, making her bites not reach their desired target.

"Get off him!" Lyall ordered, stunned at the scene playing in front of him.

"Shoot it!" Dominick groaned as the women got closer and closer to his face.

Lyall activated the bullet system in his gun and pressed the circular button on the right side of his gun. As he pressed the button, an arctic blue screen popped up on the rear sight. A white number zero appeared on the screen then, all of a sudden, it started to quickly go up the number until it got to sixty. Lyall aimed at the bloody woman as her mouth was almost upon Dominick's hazelnut skin face. Lyall put his finger on the trigger and breathed in as he focused on the woman through the arctic blue screen.

Lyall pulled the trigger and the bullet launched quickly from his assault rifle, the sixty going down to fifty-nine as the bullet sailed towards the woman. The sound echoed throughout the silent airport and the bullet hit the woman's right eye, dark blood gushed out of the eye and some of it landed on Dominick's face. The woman fell down on top of Dominick and he pushed her off of him. Lyall walked over to Dominick and stood over him.

"Hey, you okay?" Lyall asked as he held out his hand towards the man with the woman's blood splattered around his snow-white coat.

"Yeah man, thanks," Dominick answered as he grabbed Lyall's hand and got pulled up.

"What the hell was she doing?" Dominick asked as he looked at the dead woman, shaking his head.

"I don't know man. But it has the same dark blood and the same skin as that we saw back there." Lyall answered.

"God damn. When that thing was trying to bite me, it reminded me of...

Suddenly, Dominick got interrupted by loud static coming from Lyall's walkie talkie. "Hello? Is anybody there?" Lyall asked as he held the walkie-talkie close to his lips.

"You…ne...ge….out…..com…" The static interrupted the message, leaving them in silence.

"Hello? Hello?!" No-one answered Lyall as he continued to ask the broken walkie-talkie.

"Wait do you hear that?" Dominick asked as he shined the mounted flashlight on his gun quickly around the room. Everyone stayed silent for a while, but Lyall couldn't hear anything.

"Yes, I hear it too," Cedrick answered as he looked around the room. "I don't hear anything guys. I think you're just imagining things." Lyall said as he turned his head in search of a sound that he couldn't hear.

"They're coming from over there," Cedrick said as he faced the entrance back to the terminal they left just before.

Suddenly, Lyall heard something that sounded like groaning, coming from the same place Cedrick told him. Lyall shined his flashlight at where the noise was coming from and wished he hadn't.

Coming from the terminal, tons of those same pale skinned, red-blooded humans started limping towards them. Their mouths were moving up and down as if they were chewing on something. They looked like they could fall at any time by the way they limped towards them. A man in a ripped white "I heart New York t-shirt crawled on the ground towards them and Lyall noticed that both of the man's legs were gone.

"Holy shit! There's too many of them!" Rolf yelled as his eyes widened at the army limping towards them.

"Guys get ready! We're gonna have to kill all these sons of bitches if we're gonna get out of here alive!" Lyall ordered as he looked at his crew members whose faces showed fear.

Everyone held up their guns and aimed towards the army limping towards them. The guns beeped as everyone pressed the small circular button on the right side of their assault rifles. Lyall's arctic blue screen returned with the number zero in white at the rear sight. The number quickly jumped from zero to fifty-nine in a matter of seconds. As Lyall looked above the white number fifty-nine, he could see the limping creatures going slowly towards him through the arctic blue screen.

"You guys ready?!" Lyall asked as he aimed towards one of the many limping creatures heading towards them.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Dominick said as he aimed down his sights.

"Alright! Ready!" Lyall said as the rest of the crew aimed their guns. "Aim!" Everyone put their faces close to their screens as they aimed for their target. Lyall closed his eyes, breathing in through his nose and out through his lips, the groaning getting louder and louder as they got closer to them. He then opened his eyes, ready to attack. "Fire!" Lyall ordered as he pulled the trigger of his gun.

Bullets launched from everyone's guns, hurtling quickly towards the bloody creatures coming slowly towards them. But when the bullets hit their chests, they didn't die and instead, got pushed slightly backward but then regained their stride.

 _What the fuck?_

Lyall couldn't believe what he was seeing. They were just taking the bullets as just a simple push and just limped it off.

 _How did I kill them before?_

The bullets echoed through the room as they launched from their guns. Lyall tried to think back to the bloody women who tried to bite Dominick's face off. And then Lyall figured out how to kill them.

Lyall aimed at the head of the man who crawled towards him and pulled the trigger. The bullet launched from his gun and rammed itself into the man's head, killing the man and making him stop crawling any further.

"They aren't dying!" Rolf yelled as he continued to shoot at the limping army of men and women with no success.

"You have to aim at their heads!" Lyall replied as he shot at the head of a woman who was going through the metal detector.

"What?" Rolf asked as he couldn't hear what Lyall said because of the sound of bullets.

Suddenly, Lynn screamed as she dropped her gun. Lyall shined his light on Lynn and saw that one of those pale skinned humans were on top of her, about to chew her face.

"Lynn!" Lyall yelled as he pointed his gun at the man. But as he was about to look through the arctic blue screen of his rear sight, he saw that the man bit her face and ripped off her skin with his teeth. The man then clawed her face and ripped the skin off her nose and stuffed it into his mouth, Lynn's blood dripping off his mouth as he feasted on her flesh.

"You bitch!" Lyall yelled as he aimed at the man's head. The man bit Lynn's face again and Lyall pulled the trigger, launching the bullet from the muzzle of the assault rifle and into the man's head, killing him instantly and making fall off of Lynn's body.

Rolf looked to where Lynn laid with the skin of her face completely ripped off, blood oozing out of her face and onto the puddle around her head.

"Lynn!" Rolf yelled as he started running towards her. But suddenly, something fell from the mezzanine and landed on top of Rolf. Rolf yelled as he fell backward onto the blood stained floor. The man on top of Rolf had no shirt, revealing his pale skin to the world. He tried to bite Rolf's neck but Rolf put his arm in the way, causing the man to bite into the arm instead. Rolf screamed as the man sank his teeth into Rolf's right arm.

Lyall aimed his assault rifle quickly towards the man's head and pulled the trigger with no hesitation, launching the bullet into the man's skull, making the pale man stop biting Rolf's arm and fall to the ground.

"It fucking bit me!" Rolf yelled as he stared at his arm as blood started oozing slowly out of it.

"You're gonna be alright man! We just have to go back to _Aurora_!" Lyall ordered as he reached out his hand towards the man with the bitten right arm. Rolf grabbed Lyall's hand with his left hand and got pulled back up to his feet.

"We don't have many bullets left Lyall!" Sterling yelled as he continued to fire at the seemingly endless horde of pale human creatures. "Yeah man, we need to get out of here!" Dominick suggested as he too continued to fire at the horde.

"Alright, let me see if I can find a way out." Lyall turned away from where everyone else was shooting at and searched the room with his flashlight for a way out. Lyall found the mezzanine again but still couldn't find a way up.

 _How do we get out of here?!_

"Hey Lyall, I found a way out!" Lyall could faintly hear Cedrick over the sound of bullets continuing to ring through the air. Lyall turned around to see Cedrick pointing at a side of the room that was in complete darkness. Lyall pointed the mounted flashlight on his gun towards the place Cedrick pointed, lighting the place up, revealing a sign that said emergency exit with a picture of a stick figure running out the door.

"Nice work Cedrick!" Lyall yelled as he ran towards his group with his gun held firmly with both hands. "Hey guy's we have to get out of here, come on!" Lyall ordered as he waved them towards the emergency exit. Everyone started running towards the exit except Rolf and Dominick, who continued to fire at the limping creatures heading towards them.

"You motherfuckers!" Lyall could faintly hear Rolf yell as he shot multiple bullets towards the heads of the limping, pale humans.

"Come on guys!" Lyall ordered Rolf and Dominick. The shooting stopped and they ran towards the rest of the group at the emergency exit. Lyall pushed on the door handle but it wouldn't budge. Lyall continued to push but with no result.

"Kick that shit down!" Dominick yelled as he aimed his gun at the horde that was closing in on them. Lyall stepped backward a couple steps and faced the big handle at the center of the metal door. Lyall ran towards the door and with his right foot, kicked the door handle, busting the door open. But as the door swung open, an ear piercing alarm went off, almost completely deafening Lyall's ears.

 _Oh great. Can this get any worse?_

As Lyall ran out the door, he noticed that the pouring rain had subsided into a little trickle. The runways were completely wet and Lyall could smell the petrichor in the air from the rain.

Lyall held the metal door open as the crew of _Aurora_ started to exit the JFK airport and entered the wet outside runway.

But as the rest of the crew went out of the airport, Lyall realized that Cedrick still hadn't made it out yet. Lyall peeked into the darkness and pointed his flashlight around the room until he found Cedrick walking nonchalantly towards the door. "Come on Cedrick!"

"Sorry, sir! I wasn't met to run, especially from creatures that look like humans that eat other humans." Cedrick replied as he started to walk a teensy bit faster. But the horde of those pale humans was catching up to Cedrick.

Lyall groaned and entered the darkness once again with the deafening alarm ringing even louder inside than out, and aimed at their heads, picking them off one by one, and as one fell down, the one's behind them fell down as well like dominos.

Cedrick walked past Lyall slowly and Lyall ran back towards the door, holding it for Cedrick as he walked past it. Lyall closed the metal door quickly and looked at Cedrick with a puzzled face.

"You can't run at all?" Lyall asked as he stared into Cedrick's jet black eyes and red dimly lit pupils.

"Sir, my metal endoskeleton weighs tons, it's physically impossible for me to run," Cedrick answered as he stared back at Lyall with an emotionless face.

"Oh, I see. Well, I thought that since you weren't a regular human like me, you could run fast forever since you can't get tired." Lyall answered as he got lost in a trance with the red orbs in Cedrick's eyes.

"Oh I wish, but we don't have the kind of technology for that, not yet at least." Cedrick slightly grinned as he answered Lyall.

Lyall could hear the groaning coming from the other side of the metal door, along with the alarm coming from inside the airport and out the broken windows.

"We should get out of here before they break the door down," Lyall suggested as he walked past Cedrick, who continued to look at the metal door. "That might be best." Cedrick walked away from the metal door and started following Lyall's dirty blonde full head of hair.

Lyall ran down the white metal stairs, towards the rest of his crew members. The air stairs made clunking noises as Lyall slowly ran down them, not wanting to slip and fall since the pouring rain made it slippery before it left. After running carefully down the metal stairs, Lyall finally got to the runway and to the rest of his crew. But as he got to the group, Lyall could see that Rolf was in pain, holding onto a bloody rag that was tied to the place on his arm that got bitten earlier.

"Hey you okay?" Lyall asked as he stared at the wounded man. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just hurts like hell, but I'll get through it."

"Where's Lynn?" Sterling asked as he noticed that the woman was no longer with them.

Lyall breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, preparing to tell him the bad news. "She… she died."

"What? How?" Sterling asked Lyall as his widened hazel eyes stared at Lyall's sky blue eyes.

"When we were shooting at those things coming towards us, one of them fell from that balcony and landed on her. I tried to save her but I couldn't do it fast enough. The bastard bit her face and ripped off all the skin from her face." Lyall answered as he shuddered, remembering the blood gushing out of her bitten face.

Sterling shared the same shudder and shook his head in anger. "We've got to get the hell out of here. We need to get back to _Aurora_ and go back into space. It's not safe for any of us. Even with guns, we still lost Lynn and Rolf got his arm bitten by those motherfuckers."

"Now hold on just a second, my girlfriend could still be alive here. I can't leave her to die in this world, we have to go save her." Dominick retorted, not wanting to go with the plan.

"Dom, we have to go back into space, it's the best thing we can do. This whole place is fucked, we'll eventually run out of bullets and won't be able to protect ourselves." Lyall said, trying to convince Dominick to go with their plan.

"All the more reason we need to go back into space." Sterling agreed, looking at Dominick to see if he agreed.

"So Dominick, are you okay with the plan?" Lyall asked as he too, stared at the hazelnut skinned man whose head was looking at the ground. The man doesn't answer Lyall and he asked the question. "Dom, we have to go back to space. Your girlfriend would want you to be safe." Lyall tried to convince Dominick, who put his head up again, staring into Lyall's sky blue eyes. "Fine."

"Alright, thank you, Dom. Now, where's _Aurora_?" Lyall asked as he searched the runway with his eyes, not finding their magnificent spaceship anywhere.

"I have _Aurora's_ location in my systems, hold on sir," Cedrick said as his red dimly lit pupils got, even more, dimmer, turning almost black.

After only a couple of seconds, Cedrick's red pupils reanimated themselves, and he turned his head towards a corner of the JFK airport. " _Aurora_ is that way, sir."

"Alright, let's go," Lyall ordered, already starting to run towards the very corner Cedrick stared at.

As Lyall continued to run towards the corner, he could feel his gun on the strap around his back, continued to hit his back as he continued his stride. But it didn't really bother him and all he cared about was getting back to _Aurora_. But, as Lyall and his crew turned the corner, they were faced with a great obstacle.

 _Aurora_ stood in the distance, light reflecting off its lead gray wings as the sky started to clear up. But in front of their beloved spacecraft, stood what looked like hundreds of the same pale, dark blooded humans they've fought before. But something was odd about them. A good bit of them stood below some of the broken windows from the second floor for some strange reason, but the only thing that was coming out of some of the broken windows was the ear piercing alarm that continued to blare loudly.

 _Oh great. Now it's worse._

"Holy shit! How are we going to get past them?!" Sterling asked, completely in shock.

"Can we just run past them?" Rolf asked as he continued to hold the bloody rag on his arm.

"The chances of you guys surviving a run through them is very low I'm afraid," Cedrick answered as he looked at the huge horde in front of them.

"Well, how else are we gonna get to _Aurora_?" Rolf asked the cyborg to his right.

As Lyall continued to study the creatures that were looking up at the windows, he noticed that they were clawing at the windows, like as if they wanted it.

Then it all clicked.

"Guys! I know how to get out of this!" Lyall revealed as he looked back at his group, who were shocked that he actually had a plan.

"Well spit it out then man!" Sterling replied, interested in how they would get past the horde of deadly, human biting creatures.

Lyall pointed towards some of the pale humans who were clawing towards the windows. "Do you see that?"

"Yeah, what are they clawing at though?" Sterling asked, still confused.

"They're attracted to the alarm. If we break the rest of the windows.

"... then they will all go towards the window, giving us a clear path to _Aurora_ ," Cedrick said as he completed the rest of Lyall's plan.

"Yes, that's it," Lyall answered as he smiled, knowing that they got his plan.

"That is actually a very genius plan," Cedrick said as he looked at the horde again.

"Well let's do it," Lyall ordered as he pulled on the strap of his gun, pulling the gun over his shoulder and into both of his hands. Everyone did the same and aimed at the windows, their guns making a beep as they pressed the circular button on the right side of their assault rifles. Lyall pressed the button and the arctic blue screen returned again. The number zero appeared in white, then it escalated quickly until it got to the number forty-three. Lyall breathed in and aimed at the unbroken windows.

"Fire!" Lyall ordered as he pulled the trigger, the bullet blasted from his gun and glided towards the window and over the heads of the pale humans who clawed at it. The bullet hit the window and part of the window pane broke off, but it still remained. But then the rest of the bullets injected themselves into the glass, making it break, and the alarm ringed even louder. More of them started to get attracted towards the alarm, but not all of them were.

"Keep firing!" Lyall yelled as he fired at the unbroken window next to the one they just broke. They all shot towards it and it fell easily, making the alarm get to the point where it irritated Lyall's ears, even though he was far away.

"Lyall, those other things that we saw earlier are coming this way!" Rolf yelled. Lyall turned around and saw that the metal door had been open and that they were limping towards them. "Keep firing!" Lyall yelled as he turned around to aim at the windows.

Lyall and the rest of the _Aurora_ crew continued to shoot at the windows when suddenly, as Lyall pulled the trigger, no bullets came out. Lyall looked at the number at the bottom of the arctic screen and it blinked in red with the number zero. But not all of the windows were broken, and not all of the pale skinned humans were attracted to the alarm.

The ringing of the bullets started to die down until they stopped altogether. A lot of the windows were broken, but some still remained, and while most of the horde was attracted to the alarm, a lot of them still weren't.

"You guys all ran out of bullets?" Lyall asked as he stared at his crew, who all nodded up and down, answering Lyall's question. Lyall looked behind him and saw that the horde behind them was getting really close to them.

"We're gonna have to run through them, come on!" Lyall ordered as he started to run towards _Aurora_. The rest of the crew followed Lyall and ran as fast as they could, the alarm getting louder and louder as they got closer to the horde. Some of the bloody and pale humans looked in their direction but they didn't try to go after them and instead, turned back to the broken windows.

A pale and bloody man stood in front of Lyall and he pushed the man with his gun, making him fall to the ground. But as they got closer and closer to _Aurora_ , they started to not care about the alarm anymore and instead, attracted themselves towards the humans who ran towards the big, lead gray spacecraft.

Lyall got to the open ramp at the back of _Aurora_ and ran up the jet black platform, the floor making clunking noises as he rapidly climbed up the ramp. But as he got into Aurora, he turned around and saw that Cedrick was walking, still pretty far away from them.

"God dammit!" Lyall yelled as he saw the cybernetic organism walking towards _Aurora_ like as if he was on a Sunday morning stroll, while everyone else ran for their lives towards _Aurora_.

Lyall put his empty gun onto a rack and pulled out another that was completely filled with ammo. He pulled out another one and ran back down the ramp, towards the huge horde limping towards him.

Rolf and Sterling ran past Lyall as he ran down the ramp.

"Lyall what are you doing?!" Rolf asked, thinking Lyall was out of his mind.

"Cedrick can't run! I need to save him!" Lyall answered, continuing to run down the jet black ramp.

Lyall continued to run down the ramp until he got to Dominick, who was at the bottom. "Hey man, we need to shoot them down while Cedrick walks towards us," Lyall said as he handed Dominick one of the guns he had. "Alright," Dominick replied as he took the gun.

Lyall pressed the circular button to the right of his gun and saw the arctic blue screen make its return. The number zero appeared in white and suddenly, it jumped to sixty. Lyall aimed through the screen and shot at the heads of the bloody humans who limped towards them. As Cedrick continued to walk towards them, he started to get surrounded by the bloody limping bodies. Lyall and Dominick both shot at the group surrounding Cedrick, making him be able to continue to walk towards them.

As Cedrick walked up the jet black platform, Lyall and Dominick followed behind him with their guns still aimed at the bottom of the ramp, ready to shoot anything that dared to climb up into Aurora.

But as Cedrick and Lyall walked into _Aurora_ , Dominick didn't and instead stood outside, on the jet black ramp.

"What are you doing?" Lyall asked the hazelnut skinned man that stood outside of _Aurora_.

"I can't go back into space Lyall." The man replied with a cold tone in his voice.

"What do you mean man?" Lyall asked, really concerned with Dominick.

"My girlfriend, she could still be alive, waitin' for me." Dominick stared back towards the JFK airport as he answered Lyall.

"Dom, I'm sorry but she's not….

"Don't! Say that." Dominick slightly turned his face to the right, revealing only his right, amber colored eye and the right side of his mouth and nose. "She could still be alive, I know she is."

"Dom.." Lyall trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

Dominick turned his head towards Lyall, revealing all of his face. "You can't make me go to space Lyall."

"Dominick, the chances of you surviving are very slim, especially if you are on your own," Cedrick replied as he too, tried to convince Dominick to go into _Aurora_.

"Maybe, but I can't go back into space, knowing that she could be alive, all by herself."

For a while, only the groaning from the limping horde could be heard. Dominick turned towards the horde and shot a man who dared to climb up the ramp, in it's head, making him fall instantly.

"Lyall, just let me do this." Dominick pleaded as he turned again towards Lyall and Cedrick.

"If… If that's what you want, then I can't stop you." Lyall replied, looking deeply into Dominick's amber colored eyes.

"Thank you," Dominick said as he walked towards Lyall. He hugged the dirty blonde haired man, as he knew this was the last time he would ever see him. Dominick pulled away from the hug and walked out _Aurora_ once again.

But before he walked down the ramp, he turned his head and faced his former leader.

"I'm gonna miss you, Lyall," Dominick said as he nodded his head slightly.

"Me too man. I hope you find her man." Lyall responded, nodding his head as well.

"Thank you." And then Dominick walked out of _Aurora_ and jumped from the jet black ramp and onto the runway since the horde was in front of the ramp, blocking it. Lyall pressed the big, circular red button to the left of the exit and the hissing returned. Lyall stepped back, not wanting his ears to go deaf again.

Lyall and Cedrick watched as the big jet black door and the same colored ramp started to go inwards, towards the ship. But, as the ramp got closer to them, Lyall noticed that one of the creatures from the horde was on the ramp and quickly aimed at the crawling man.

Lyall pressed the circular button again. Making the same arctic blue screen appear once again. The white number zero zoomed all the way up to twenty-nine and Lyall aimed through the arctic blue screen. He pulled the trigger and the bullet sailed into the man's head, making him stop crawling and he fell off the ramp and onto the cold, wet runway.

Lyall continued to watch as the ramp inserted itself into the same floor that Lyall and Cedrick were standing on and watched as the big metal jet black door went down slowly until it went all the way down and clicked into place with a loud bang. After that, the room was completely noiseless and Cedrick and Lyall just stared at the metal door without saying a word.

Cedrick turned and slowly walked away from Lyall and exited the room. Lyall put the gun he grabbed back in its place and followed Cedrick out of the room and towards the ladder that led to the center of _Aurora_.

"He's not going to make it," Cedrick said as they walked through the dark, hexagonal hallway with its vents clunking and the pipes running through the sides of the walls.

"You don't know that," Lyall replied as he followed Cedrick down the eerie hallway.

"Well with one person against a bunch of those things we shot down, I'd say it's an almost one hundred percent chance of death," Cedrick responded as they got to the ladder that led to the center of _Aurora._

"Well, what did you want me to do Cedrick? I couldn't do anything to make him come on the ship. It's not my fault!" Lyall replied as he looked deeply into Cedrick's red dimly lit pupils, not getting into its trance.

Cedrick walked away from Lyall and pressed a square shaped button on a wall, making the door to the elevator open up for him. Cedrick then entered the elevator and looked straight into Lyall's sky blue eyes. "I didn't say that it's your fault that he's going to die. You did the best you could do, in fact, I would've been surprised if you got him to actually come aboard. But he's going to die out there all alone, and there's nothing you could've done to stop it." The doors slid towards each other, closing and leaving Lyall in the darkness.

Lyall sighed and covered his face with his blood stained hands.

 _God dammit. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't we just come back to peace, not destruction?_

Lyall let his hands drop from his face and onto his hips and shook his head, not believing what he had seen at this once busy JFK airport. Lyall grabbed onto the ladder and felt the cold metal on his palms.

But as he climbed up he could've sworn he heard something from the dark hallway. He looked but all he could see was pure darkness. Lyall just decided to forget about it and continued to climb up to the center of Aurora.

As he got to the center, he continued to climb the ladder until he got to the very top. Lyall jumped off the cold, metal ladder and landed on the pure white floor. As Lyall walked down the pure white hallway, he looked out the windows and saw that the whole horde was all around _Aurora_.

 _I hope Dominick made it out._

Lyall got to a big, circular, white door and he put his card into the wall next to the door. As Lyall pulled out the card, the red light turned green and the door rolled counterclockwise. As the door opened, it hissed but not as much as the door that led to the outside world. When the door finished rolling, Lyall entered the cockpit, everyone looking at him with confused faces.

"Where's Dom?" Darius asked as he noticed that the hazelnut skinned man was no longer with him.

"Dom didn't want to go back into _Aurora_. He was worried about his girlfriend and he didn't want to leave her behind." Lyall answered, remembering the hug that Dominick gave him before he left.

"Are you serious? We could see the crazy things going on from Cedrick's eyes. Why would he want to stay on Earth?" Darius asked

"I guess he just really loved her, I don't know," Lyall answered.

"Hey guys, can we get out of here? I don't want to stay here a minute longer." Sterling chimed in as he looked out the front windows of the cockpit.

"Yeah, let's get out of here." Lyall agreed as he sat at his post, next to sterling who also got back into his seat.

"Locking all doors," Elwynn advised as she pressed a button in front of her. Lyall looked at the small screen in front of him that showed a diagram of _Aurora_ with a green line where each door was. The green lines suddenly started to turn red one by one until they were all the same color.

"Turning on heat shields," Cedrick said, who filled in for Rolf who was in his room and not in the cockpit. The outline of Aurora's diagram turned green, showing that the heat shields were armed.

Lyall pushed forward on the lever in front of him, elevating _Aurora_ up from the ground.

"Putting up landing gears," Sterling said as he pressed a jet black, square shaped button. _Aurora_ moved back and forth slightly as the landing gears went back into _Aurora_. When the landing gears got all the way up, Aurora shook and the landing gear on _Aurora's_ diagram was gone.

Lyall continued to push the lever that activated the thrusters forward, making Aurora get higher and higher, hovering over the JFK airport. Lyall looked out the front windows and below him, he could see the horde on the ground, looking like little ants as they got higher up. Lyall could also see the airbus A320 that was rammed into the terminal they were in, it's tail completely broken off and on the top of the roof.

Lyall shook his head and pulled on the thrusters, even more, making Aurora actually tilt upward, like as if he was on a rollercoaster going higher and higher. Lyall breathed in as he prepared to push the lever all the way forward. He breathed through his nose and then exhaled through his mouth. Then he pushed as hard as he could on the lever, making it go all the way up.

 _Aurora_ dropped slightly and then blasted off towards the charcoal gray clouds. As _Aurora_ went through the clouds Lyall started to think about everything he had seen. The damaged airplanes, the complete silence of the airport, the mysterious figure that he ran after, the dead body they found, the hundreds of pale, dark blooded humans who wanted to bite them.

 _What did Earth become? What happened after we left?_

Lyall didn't have the answers to the questions he asked himself. All he knew was that what he once called home, was now just a complete wasteland.

Lyall looked in front of him as he saw that the whiteness of the clouds started to turn dark. And eventually, he was back in the same place he was for ten years. The place he went to after he left his beloved planet.

Everyone cheered as they saw the deep vacuum of space again, happy that they were finally safe from the dangers that lurked.

"Opening all doors," Elwynn advised as she pressed the circular button to the left of the one she pressed to lock them. The red lines on the diagram of _Aurora_ quickly changed to green, showing that all the doors were unlocked, and the circular door that led to the cockpit opened up.

"Turning off heat shields." Cedrick notified as he turned the knob above his head back to its original place.

Everyone got up from their seats and walked towards the front of the cockpit to look at the billion's of stars in the never ending sea of space. But Lyall stayed in his seat, still thinking about everything he had seen.

 _I can't believe it. Lynn got her face ripped off and that blood just gushed out of her. That would be the absolute worst way to die. Thank god we're back in space. We're finally safe._

Suddenly, Lyall heard a gun being reloaded behind him. Lyall turned around and saw none other than the person that he was chasing earlier back at the JFK airport.

The woman had the same dark blue bubble jacket as before, only that her hood was off her head, revealing that she had on a really damaged blue baseball cap with a blue capital D in the middle, surrounded by white. Some hairs curled down the right side of her right face and the hair on her head was tied, keeping it short and not long. Her hazel eyes were squinted as she held a pistol towards Lyall's head.

"What the hell is going on?" The woman asked coldly, keeping the pistol aimed at the dirty blonde haired man.

"Who the hell are you?" Lyall asked, staring at the gun aimed towards his head.

Everyone turned around to see the scene playing behind them, gasping as they saw it. Sterling started to walk slowly towards them and it looked like the girl didn't appreciate it.

"Stop walking, or I'll kill him right now." The woman asked, putting her finger closer to the trigger. Sterling walked back to where he stood, raising his hands up as he did so.

"Now answer me, what is going on?" The woman asked again, seeming really irritated.

"I don't know what's going on, you tell me what's going on," Lyall answered back, staring at the woman's hazel, squinted eyes.

Her eyes stopped squinting and she made a puzzled face. "What are you talking about?" She asked, still aiming at Lyall.

Suddenly, Cedrick got up from his seat and walked up towards the women with the gun pointed towards Lyall. The woman with the blue and white ball cap turned around and pointed the gun at him. "Stop right there!"

Cedrick reached into his lab coat and pulled out a pistol of his own and aimed at the woman. "I suggest you put that down. Now."

The woman didn't seem to be too scared and continued to aim at the cybernetic organism.

"Guys we can just talk about this," Lyall said, trying to negotiate. The woman continued to aim her gun at Cedrick. "Tell him to put the gun down." She ordered.

"I will do nothing of the sort." Cedrick retorted.

"Cedrick, just put the gun down," Lyall ordered. Cedrick turned his head to look at the man who told him to put it down. "Sir, are you sure? She could kill you." Cedrick replied.

"Cedrick, that's an order," Lyall responded, looking at him with a serious face, not changing his mind.

Cedrick put the gun down slowly and put it back into his lab coat. "As you wish, sir."

The woman put her gun down and held onto it with her right hand.

"Thank you. Now, tell me what's going on." The woman said yet again.

"I'm sorry but I don't know what's going on either. All I know is that we just came back from a ten year trip in space and now everything on Earth is fucked." Lyall replied.

"That's the stupidest lie I ever heard. The woman responded, not buying what Lyall said.

"You don't believe me? Look out those windows." Lyall pointed to the windows as he told her to look at them. The woman looked to where Lyall pointed and her mouth dropped, not believing what she saw.

"Oh no. No no no no, I don't want to be in space. What if the ship breaks down? Are we gonna fall?" The woman asked, really concerned.

"Don't worry, if the ship breaks down, we'll just float for the rest of our lives, we won't fall down," Lyall reassured.

That seemed to make the woman even more afraid. "I need to go back to Earth, I can't stay here." The woman said, shaking her head in complete disbelief.

"Woah woah woah, we're not going back there! Are you crazy?! There are human eating things down there and you want to go back?!" Sterling retorted, completely baffled at what the woman proposed.

The woman pointed the gun at Lyall again. "You're going to take me back to Earth, now!" She ordered.

"What if I don't?" Lyall asked, testing the woman.

"Then I'll kill you." The woman said coldly.

"Then how are you gonna navigate the ship? You don't know how to move the ship and you'd probably crash into the ground or burn in the sky before you even see the ground." Lyall stood up from his chair and looked down at the woman.

"I can find a way to drive this thing." The woman replied, not listening to what Lyall said.

"Really? Me and my crew spent years learning how to navigate spacecraft's for years. And you're gonna learn to fly it properly without even practicing? Just put down the gun." Lyall responded, locking his sky blue eyes with her hazel brown eyes. She squinted again, still not putting the gun down.

Lyall reached out his right hand and slowly moved it towards the pistol in her hand. He held onto the top of the pistol and pushed down slowly, the woman not trying to stop him. Lyall put the gun all the way down and locked eyes with her again.

"Thank you. Now, can you tell me what the happened on Earth?" Lyall asked.

"You were really in space when walkers came?" The woman asked.

"What's a walker?" Lyall asked, not understanding what she meant.

"Wow, you really were in space." The woman answered. Her white and blue baseball cap turned as she looked for a place to sit. She looked at the seat that Sterling sat in before and decided to sit on it. Lyall sat in his chair and turned to face the woman to his left, the rest of the crew walking towards them and crowding around them.

"Well, after you guys left to go to space, I was eight years old when I first saw these human looking things eating other humans."

"God damn," Sterling whispered, not believing that she was only eight years old when she saw those bloody and pale skinned, human eating monsters. "You were only eight? Where are your parents?"

The woman looked at Sterling, trying to hold back tears. "They left me with a babysitter and went on a vacation without me. But they never came back home."

Sterling shook his head in complete disbelief. "So you survived on your own?" Sterling asked.

"No, other people took care of me."

"Where are they?" Sterling asked, seeing as how they weren't with her.

The woman with the dark blue bubble jacket and white and blue baseball cap sighed "They all died, every single one of them."

The whole cockpit was silent after that, only the humming of Aurora's engine could be heard as they flew farther away from Earth and deeper into space.

"I'm sorry," Sterling said as he looked at the woman looking up at him.

She looked at sterling and then glanced back at Lyall. "After I saw one of them bite someone and kill them, I saw that the guy came back up, then he killed a woman, and then she turned into one of them too. They kept killing more and more people and the world went to shit. Those were the things you saw at that airport, those were the walkers."

"Wait a minute. You're saying that all those walker's we killed, were once alive and got killed by them?"

The woman's baseball cap moved up and down as she nodded, saying yes to his question.

Lyall turned away from her and started to remember how Lynn got killed by one of them and how he killed a bunch of those walkers. They were once regular human beings like him, now they were terrible, pale skinned and dark blooded creatures that now killed the species they once were. "I think I'm gonna be sick," Lyall admitted as he covered his mouth.

"Wait, hold on a minute, you said that if they got bit, they would turn into one of them?" Sterling asked, very concerned.

"Yeah, that's what happened to someone that took care of me. He got bit and he started to turn into one of them." The woman answered as she looked at the obviously concerned man.

Sterling turned his head towards Lyall, with fear in his face. "Lyall, do you know what this means?" The man asked as his eyes were widened.

Everyone started to walk around with their hands on their heads and faces. And then it hit Lyall.

 _Rolf! He got bit by one of them!_

"Oh no," Lyall said, completely in shock. "Cedrick! Where's Rolf?!"

"He's in his room sir, he said he wasn't feeling too good and looked like he needed some rest," Cedrick answered as he looked towards the exit of the cockpit.

"Who's Rolf? What's going on?" The woman asked, not understanding what was happening.

Lyall stood up and looked down at the white and blue baseball cap and dark blue bubble jacket wearing woman and locked his eyes with her's.

"Those walkers you were talking about? One of them is aboard this ship." Lyall said coldly.


	3. The horrifying revelation

A/N: First of all, I would just like to say thank you for the support for both me and the second chapter. Thank you to all the reviewers, (well all the ones that didn't use racial slurs and didn't insult me) as well as all the followers, you guys are awesome! Also, you may have noticed that I actually changed my username. I decided to change it from mistergamer 11 to TheLoneWo1f because if I'm being honest, it sounds stupid on a writing website, so I chose to change it and I'm happy with my new name. I just wanted to put that out there.

Now I have some news about this story. I've actually started working on another fanfic that's currently in the works and I'm very excited about it. I will be taking a little time off from Space Walkers to work on the other fanfic. But I promise that this story will be done! I don't have a release date for the next chapter but I can say it might be around July-September. Although, it could be sooner than that. As for the other fanfic, I'm thinking of posting it in July.

Anyway, thanks again for all the support, it really gives me the motivation to continue writing and I appreciate it. I hope you enjoy this third chapter of Space Walkers and I hope you'll read my new fanfic that'll come out in July as well as chapter four when it comes out.

 _Chapter 3_

 _The horrifying revelation_

 _"We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You'd think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn't."_

 _― Rick Yancey_

* * *

" _ **You ready for this man?" Dominick took a gander at Lyall to his left as he looked away from the crowd.**_

" _ **I'm totally ready. I can't wait to talk about the mission." A smile grew across Lyall's face as he turned to face the big crowd in front of him that was filled with NASA workers, news reporters, and some civilians who also shared Lyall's excitement.**_

" _ **You're not nervous?" Dominick tilted his head and slightly raised his eyebrow, perplexed at the thought of Lyall actually being excited about speaking.**_

" _ **Nah, I've talked to bigger crowds than this."**_

" _ **Really? But there's like tons of people here, and millions watching around the world." Dominick pointed at the big, jet black camera with its lens pointed towards them. "How can you not be nervous?"**_

" _ **I don't know, I guess I'm used to it." Lyall faced the same black camera the hazelnut skinned man next to him pointed towards and smiled.**_

" _ **Yeah right, sure Lyall." Dominick shook his head and slightly chuckled. He turned to his right, towards another member of the mission, Rolf. "Hey, you nervous man?"**_

 _ **Lyall turned to his left towards another member of the mission, Darius, who was almost done drinking his entire bottle of water. "What are you doing man? We're supposed to drink that when our throats are dry from all the talking."**_

 _ **Darius took the last drop of water from the bottle and gulped it down. He moved the bottle away from his mouth and put the cap back on it. He turned the cap as he paid his attention to Lyall. "I doubt I'll talk much."**_

" _ **But what if you do? You're throats gonna hurt like hell." Lyall replied as the bottle cap continued to rotate.**_

 _ **Darius finished turning the bottle cap and turned his chair away from Lyall and towards a trash can far away from them.**_

" _ **That's why…" Darius threw the empty bottle towards the trash can. The bottle bounced off the edge of the trash can and landed inside. Darius turned his rotating chair back around to face Lyall once again.**_

" _ **I have another." Darius leaned towards the floor and picked up another bottle, but this one was filled with the clear liquid he drank from the other bottle which now laid in the trashcan.**_

" _ **Where did you get that bottle?" Lyall stared at the completely full bottle of water which stood on the black table in front of him.**_

" _ **Hey, where's my water bottle?" Dominick asked behind Lyall. The dirty blond haired man turned around to face the hazelnut skinned man, who searched around where he sat. Lyall turned away from Dominick and glanced at the man to his left with the new, unopened water bottle, who grinned as he knew Lyall found out how he got it. Lyall also grew a grin across his face as he shook his head.**_

 _ **A beating sound echoed through the room. Lyall turned in his chair to face his far right and sure enough, there stood a man with a brown suit, who tapped the microphone in front of him with his right hand. The conversations from both Lyall's table and the audience died quickly after.**_

 _ **The man smiled and stopped tapping on the microphone. "Well, hello everyone. Today, we have a very special event going on today." The man motioned his hand towards the table to his right. "I'm Sean O'Keefe and these are four of the eight astronauts who will be going somewhere no man has gone before. Guys, would you like to introduce yourselves?"**_

 _ **Rolf put his hand on the microphone in front of him and moved it closer to him. "Hello, my names Rolf, I'm the flight engineer for Aurora."**_

" _ **My names Dominick, I'm the other flight engineer for Aurora," Dominick announced as he faced the other flight engineer.**_

" _ **My names Lyall, Commander of Aurora." The same excitement from when Lyall was first told he would command the first mission to Mars built inside him once again as he spoke into the microphone.**_

" _ **Names Darius, Mission Specialist for Aurora." Applause answered them all as Darius finished speaking.**_

 _ **After the clapping ended, Sean O'Keefe moved closer to his microphone. "All four of these amazing astronauts will be answering any questions you guys have about Aurora I. But please do try to keep the questions short since we are on a tight schedule. So without further ado, any questions?"**_

 _ **Immediately, lights and cameras flashed and people raised their hands like crazy.**_

" _ **Jesus Christ, there's so many people here man," Dominick whispered as he stared at the tons of hands up in the air.**_

" _ **Don't worry man, we're all here with you, they're not gonna hurt you," Lyall whispered back.**_

 _ **Sean pointed to a woman who had a white shirt and short brown hair. Everyone went quiet as she held the microphone close to her mouth.**_

" _ **Hi, Carley from WABE Atlanta news, this question is for Lyall. How do you feel about being the commander of the first ever mission to Mars?"**_

" _ **Ahhhh, it really is a great feeling, being the leader of such a great achievement in human history. But it's not about me, this crew is the best qualified for a mission this massive, and the ship, it's just brilliant. So yeah, I'm very happy and excited about being the commander for Aurora I."**_

 _ **Everyone clapped and Carley nodded her head. "Thank you, Lyall." Carley sat back in her seat.**_

" _ **Next question." Sean O'Keefe said as soon as the applause died.**_

 _ **The flashing lights returned and the hands were raised once again. The brown-suited man pointed at a man in a black suit who had short black gelled back hair.**_

" _ **Carl Walker, journalist for CNN, this is a question for all of you. Did you ever think any of you would be going to Mars? Nevertheless, the first?"**_

 _ **Everyone at the table nodded and Darius got close to his microphone. "Great question Carl. Uhhh well, I always thought mankind would get to Mars one day. But to be honest, I don't think any of us thought we would be the first. Hell, I thought I was going to be a basketball player."**_

 _ **Everyone on the panel and the crowd included, chuckled a bit. All except Carl, who kept a straight face. The crowd eventually quieted and Carl spoke again. "Do any of you have anything else else to add?"**_

 _ **Lyall pulled the mic close to his lips and stared at the black-haired man. "No, not really. But I will say this, despite being the first to go to Mars, we will have a successful mission with no problems."**_

* * *

The woman in the blue and white hat was completely shocked. Everyone around her shook their heads and she stared at Lyall, who too, was in the same shock.

"We need to go kill him." The tone of her voice was as cold as ice.

Everyone stared at her with their eye's wide. "What do you mean kill him? Why would we kill one of our own?" Lyall didn't agree with what the woman had proposed.

"He's not one of you anymore, he's one of the walkers now."

"How do you know that? He's strong, he can survive a bite." Darius retorted as he shook his head in defiance.

"Yeah, he didn't turn into one of them when he got bit, why would he turn now?" Kostas stared at the woman as she sat in the chair.

The woman sighed and crossed her arms against her dark blue bubble jacket, clearly frustrated. "You don't turn as soon as you get bit, it takes a while for it to take you over."

"How long?"

"How am I supposed to know? It depends on how big the bite was. If it was big, he probably already turned." Clementine answered as she stared at Kostas.

The horrifying scene from the JFK airport played in Lyall's mind. The deep red blood gushed out of Rolf's arm and it made a canvas across the white floor. The walker's red teeth dripped blood from the bites of flesh it bit from its meal. Lyall shuddered at the sight of the huge bite in its entirety.

The bangs from the guns and the whistles from the bullets flying through the air flooded his eardrums. The loud yells from Rolf and Lynn were distant as the bullets continued to whistle by him. The walkers groaned and moaned as the whistling bullets ended their flights and crashed into their bodies. But Lyall quickly snapped back into the terrible reality of the situation at hand.

"How big was the bite?" The woman's white and blue ballcap turned towards the dirty blonde haired man, the capital D faced him with the blue bill and the woman's hazel eyes underneath it.

"It was pretty big, blood gushed out of his arm like crazy." The picture stayed in Lyall's mind and he could never get rid of it, no matter how hard he tried.

"Then he probably turned." The woman replied in the same cold tone.

"We don't know if he's turned yet. He could still be alive." Kostas still continued to doubt the idea of his friend becoming one of those monsters.

"Stop denying it. I know how these things work. I've lost people around me because of them, the bite kills them and turns them into walkers, there's no other way out of it."

"Well, there's only one way to find out for sure." Everyone turned their heads away from the woman in the dark blue bubble jacket and blue and white ballcap and faced Cedrick, who stood behind them. "We have to go to Rolf's dorm and take a look for ourselves."

"You're right Cedrick, come on guys," Darius walked towards the exit and everyone followed him All except Lyall, who stayed with the woman who entered _Aurora_ without being a part of his crew. "Are you sure he's not a human anymore?"

She sighed again as she clearly was tired of answering the same questions with the same answers. "Yes. I'm sure."

Lyall groaned and put his right hand over his forehead and covered his eyes in frustration. "God dammit, why the hell is all this going on?"

"I asked myself that question every single day since I was eight." The woman stood from the chair she sat in and faced the dirty blonde haired man. She moved Lyall's hand away from his eyes and stared into his sky blue eyes. "Come on, we have to go with the others."

Lyall nodded and led her out of the room and towards Rolf's room which was below them.

"So, what's your name?" Lyall made eye contact with the woman to his right as he continued to walk, her hazel eyes glistened as the lights above reflected on them. "Clementine."

"Well, nice to meet you, Clementine. I'm Lyall, leader of what used to be this ten person group." The scenes from the airport played itself again like an endless loop. The bullets whistled and the guns erupted like drums. A woman without warning screamed behind Lyall. He quickly turned around, only to find monitors and controls of _Aurora_ through the entrance of the cockpit. But Lyall could've sworn he heard a female scream. In fact, it sounded a lot like Lynn when her face was getting chewed off by the walker.

"What's the matter?" Clementine also turned around, only to face the same controls and monitors Lyall saw.

"Ahh nothing, thought I heard something," Lyall turned back around to face Clementine. Clementine raised her eyebrows as she stared at Lyall as she clearly did not hear the sound Lyall claimed he had heard.

"Well, let's go to Rolf's room," Lyall walked towards the ladder that led to the center of _Aurora_. Clementine waited a second before she followed Lyall as she tried to understand what Lyall had said to her.

* * *

Everyone was crowded around the door to Rolf's room as Lyall and Clementine got to their destination. "What's going on?" Lyall asked as he stared at everyone who stood outside of the pure white door.

"We've been trying to call Rolf for him to get out of his room but he won't answer us. Now Cedrick's trying to hack the card system since we can't enter unless we have his card or he lets us in."

"How's it going, Cedrick?" Lyall asked as Cedrick fiddled with the card reader next to the door.

"It's going pretty well sir, should be done in about a minute," Cedrick continued to tinker with the card reader and didn't bother to make eye contact.

"Alright thanks, Cedrick." Lyall turned around to find that Clementine leaned against a pure white wall away from everyone else. Lyall walked over to her and she raised her head slightly. "Hey Clementine, sorry I couldn't give you a grand tour of _Aurora_. Something's kind of happening right now." Lyall said as he tried to lighten the mood.

Clementine smiled and chuckled slightly. "I noticed. But it's fine." Clementine stopped leaning on the pure white wall and walked towards the windows in front of her on the other side of the hallway. As she got to the window, she put her hands on the windowsill and stared with her hazel eyes at the trillions of stars that floated in the never ending sea of space.

Lyall stood next to her as she stared at the amazing sight in front of her. It reminded Lyall of when he went to space for the first time. He was just as amazed as Clementine was when he first saw the breathtaking scene. Even though he's been to space many times and has gotten pretty used to it, he still felt the same excitement and astonishment about space as the first time he laid eyes upon it.

Clementine sighed and turned away from the window. Her wide eyes turned dull as she looked up at Lyall. "I really want to go back to Earth."

Lyall sighed and stared at her dull hazel eyes. "There are human eating walkers back there. Why would you want to go back to Earth?" The thought of Clementine wanting to go back to Earth, despite a lot of walkers lurking at every corner, perplexed him.

"I know that there are walkers out there but I, I just don't like the feeling this spaceship of yours has. It feels like I'm trapped. On Earth, I can go wherever I want. But here, it feels like I'm in a box, you know?"

"Yeah, I get what you mean. But I'm sorry, we can't risk the lives of all of us just to let one person get off this ship. You're gonna have to stay with us."

Clementine sighed and shook her head as Lyall didn't grant what she wished for. "Seems like I don't have much of a choice."

"No, you don't. I would take you back but it would endanger the safety of everyone so I can't. I'm sorry."

Clementine sighed and turned away from the dirty blonde haired man as she put her attention back onto the stars outside of _Aurora_. "So since I'm permanently a part of your group now, can you tell me more about it?"

"What do you want to know?"

"What was this whole space mission about? Were you going to the moon or something?" She didn't make eye contact and continued to stay transfixed on the distant stars through the window.

"Well, we weren't going to the moon, but we were going to someplace even better. Mars." That last word snapped Clementine from the trance of the stars she was in and faced the dirty blonde haired man. "That's bullshit, no way."

"It's true, that's what our mission was for."

"But isn't Mars really far away?"

"Yeah, kind of. But this ship is the most advanced spacecraft of all time. Not to mention, the fastest." A smirk ran across Lyall's face as he told Clementine about his spacecraft.

"Do you have a name for this spaceship?"

"Yeah, it's called _Aurora_. Same as the mission we're on. _Aurora_ I, the first mission to Mars." Lyall remembered when he first read the mission's name. He sat in front of Sean O'Keefe as he didn't have a clue as to why he was called to his office. He gave Lyall that light brown folder, which inside, held the name of the mission Lyall was on right now.

" _Aurora_? Sounds weird." Clementine joined Lyall and made a smirk of her own.

" _Aurora_ sounds weird? What would you name this ship?" Lyall tilted his head and raised his eyebrows as the thought of _Aurora_ being a weird name puzzled him.

"Maybe something like Mars lander, I don't know. You have to give me some time to think."

A smile grew across Lyall's face and he chuckled slightly. "Yeah, that would definitely be a name for a spaceship."

Lyall continued to chuckle and Clementine lightly punched his right arm. "Shut up."

A hiss echoed through the hallway. Lyall and Clementine both glanced at the entrance to Rolf's room and it was revealed that the door started to finally open. Lyall and Clementine both jogged to the door to join with the rest of the crew as they too, waited for the door to open. The door gradually slid to the left, making a slight hiss as it did so.

As the door continued to open, Lyall peered into the dark room, but all he could make out was an empty bed with the sheets on the floor. The absolutely awful metallic smell made its return and wrapped itself around his body like a snake and squeezed its prey. The metal scent hit Lyall like a slap in the face and it almost made him throw up.

The door came to a complete stop and the hissing faded away. Lyall hesitantly stepped in and peered to the other side of the room, but the only light coming in was that of the hallway behind Lyall. Lyall searched around the wall with his hand and found the light switch for the dark room. Lyall flicked the switch and the light blinded Lyall and his crewmembers behind him.

Lyall put his hand over his eyes and could make out a figure standing in front of him, staring out the window and towards the moon, which was still small since they were far from it.

"Oh thank god. Rolf, you had us worried." Lyall moved his hands away from his eyes and stared at Rolf as he stared out the window. Lyall started to walk towards his crewmember to find out if he was alright.

"Lyall, don't!" Lyall stopped walking towards Rolf and turned around to face Clementine, whose eyes were wide. "What's wrong?"

The faces of the crew quickly changed from faces of fear to faces of pure horror. Their mouths dropped open and their eyes were wide. Groans came from behind him and they reminded him of the same groans he heard back at the airport.

Lyall turned around slowly and didn't spot Rolf where he was standing. He was no longer staring at the trillions of stars and instead, stared deep into Lyall's sky blue eyes with his menacing, pure white eyes. The scent of metal laid itself around Lyall's face as Rolf groaned. Lyall could only stare at what used to be one of his own crew members.

Without warning, Rolf lunged towards Lyall and tackled him to the ground. "Rolf, what're you doing?!" Rolf opened his mouth and crawled towards Lyall's neck. As Rolf got closer to Lyall, Darius pulled him away from Lyall and threw him to the ground. But, as Darius pulled him off Lyall, the weight of Rolf made Darius fall as well.

Darius slammed into the ground and Rolf gazed at his next meal, which also groaned just like him. Rolf started to crawl towards his hurt prey.

Kostas ran towards the crawling man and swung his boot into the man's chest. Rolf flew off the ground and into the wall. Rolf stuck to the wall for a second and fell as he left a canvas of deep red blood from his mouth on the pure white wall.

"Rolf! Snap out of it man!" Kostas tried to get his friend to turn back into normal but it wasn't working. This was no longer Rolf. He was gone now and in his place was a human eating, dark blooded, metallic smelling walker.

Rolf moderately got back up when unanticipatedly, a loud bang echoed through the room and Rolf's head jerked back as a bullet entered his brain. Dark red blood burst from his head and painted the pure white wall, making a bigger bloody canvas. Rolf fell to the floor and this time, remained perfectly still.

As Lyall turned away from the dead carcass, he was shocked to find Cedrick with a pistol aimed at the dead body. But Cedrick put the pistol down and started studying it.

A click originated from behind Cedrick. The cybernetic organism turned around to find that Clementine was reloading her pistol. She pulled back on the slide of the pistol with her left hand and let it go, which made the slide quickly move forward into its regular position. The clicking sound returned and the gun became fully refilled with more bullets.

Clementine stared at everyone with cold and squinted eyes while they all stared back at her with their eyes wide open in fear.

"Why did you kill him?!" Kostas' loud voice echoed through the room

"He was a walker, he needed to be killed," Clementine shook her head and kept her cool.

"You don't know that! We could've snapped him out of it!" Kostas' voice started to get even louder and angrier.

"No, you couldn't. He was dead, I just saved your life!" Clementine couldn't keep her cool and yelled back at him.

"He wasn't dead! He was-

"-Stand down Kostas!" Lyall interrupted as he got to his feet. Kostas stared at Lyall with his eyes wide in anger.

"She did what she needed to do. Rolf, he wasn't coming back man. He turned into one of those walkers and there's no way we could bring him back. You should be thanking Clementine, not yelling at her."

Kostas sighed and shook his head. He raised his head slightly as he met Clementine's hazel eyes with his chocolate brown eyes. "I'm sorry... Clementine. Thanks for killing…." Kostas' voice trailed off as he turned around to face Rolf's dead body.

The dead cadaver laid on its side, with its pure white eyes wide open. Kostas shook his head again and faced Clementine once again.

"Thanks for killing my good friend… Clementine." Kostas' voice was twisted as he stared deeply into Clementine's eyes with anger.

Clementine was stunned and could only stare at him. Lyall walked towards Clementine and stood next to her.

"Hey, I don't think it's a good idea if you stay in this room. Let's go outside."

Clementine nodded and they both walked out of the room. Clementine leaned on the wall and sighed as she crossed her arms onto her bubble jacket. She stared down towards the pure white floor and didn't try to make eye contact.

"What's wrong?"

Clementine raised her head slightly and faced the dirty blonde haired man with her natural brown hair covering part of her left eye. "That guy over there, I saved his goddamn life and he just started yelling at me for no reason." Her brown hair turned left and right as she shook her head.

"Don't worry about it, he didn't know what he was talking about. He thought there was a way to save Rolf."

"Hell of a fucking crew you have." Clementine stared at the pure white floors of _Aurora_. Only the light hum of _Aurora's_ engines stopped the hallway from being completely noiseless.

"Was there any way to save him?" Clementine raised her head slightly and stared into Lyall's cold sky blue eyes.

"No." Her answer was quick and to the point. Lyall knew Rolf would most likely never return back to his regular self after he turned into one of those monsters. But the way Clementine said it, it was like a bullet that quickly hit him in the chest.

After that, they stayed silent and stared at each other without saying a word. Again, the slight hum of _Aurora's_ engines as the ship flew through the cold, never ending sea of space stopped the hallway from being noiseless.

"Hey, Lyall?" Clementine raised her head slightly as they called Lyall's name. Lyall turned to his left and there stood Eduardo and Elwynn both outside Rolf's dorm.

"What's the matter?" Lyall asked as he walked away from Clementine and met with his crew.

"Cedrick is suggesting we take Rolf's body to the medical bay so it can be analyzed. Do you want us to take him there or do you want us to put him through the space chute?" Elwynn's baby blue eyes reflected some of the light coming from above her.

"Uhhh, yeah that's a good idea." Lyall turned around to face Clementine, who stared back at him with her eyes still squinted.

Eduardo and Elwynn both also stared back at the woman who shot what used to be a member of their crew. "Well uhhh, I'll get the pole stretcher," Eduardo walked away from them and towards the medical bay.

"Well come on." Elwynn disappeared back into Rolf's room and Lyall turned around to face Clementine again. She nodded slightly towards Rolf's room and Lyall nodded back. Lyall walked into the metallic scented room and left Clementine alone in the pure white hallway.

* * *

Lyall and the rest of the crew stared at the dead corpse of Rolf as it laid perfectly still on the pure white patient table.

"Are you ready for the MRI scan Cedrick?" Lyall faced the cyborg who was pressing keys on a keyboard.

Cedrick continued to press the keys under the screen connected to the scanning machine. "Yes Lyall, put his body into the MRI scanner."

Lyall went to the patient table with Rolf on it and went to the left side of it. Underneath it was a jet black pedal. Lyall pressed the pedal with his left foot and made the table gradually elevate. Everyone crowded around the table as it continued to rise.

"What are you going to do with the body?" Clementine stared at Rolf's body as it continued to rise.

"We're gonna do an MRI scan on him, see what's wrong," Lyall continued to press down hard on the pedal.

"What's an MRI scan?" Clementine asked as she stared at the pure white machine that Rolf would enter.

"It's-

"It stands for magnetic resonance imaging," Cedrick said as Lyall got cut off. Cedrick walked away from the keyboard and stood in front of Clementine. "It's a scan where we use a magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to let us see the inside of humans through a screen. With MRI, we can see problems with things such as brain tumors, cancer, arthritis, or in this case, why Rolf decided to turn into one of those things you guys killed tons of back there at that airport."

"They're called walkers," Clementine replied as she noticed Cedrick didn't know what they were called.

"Walkers? Interesting…." Cedrick thought about that and stared at the dead body as it rose.

The patient table stopped rising and Lyall stopped pressing his boot onto the pedal. Cedrick stood next to Rolf's bloody head and pulled a pure white helmet towards his head.

"What is that used for?" Clementine asked as she stared at the pure white helmet being put around Rolf's head.

"Oh, this? This'll be used to look inside Rolf's head and let us look through his brain and brainstem to see if there are any problems with them." Cedrick finished setting the helmet around Rolf's head and backed away from the table.

Lyall turned to his left and turned a charcoal gray knob clockwise. As Lyall turned the knob, the patient table slid slowly into the MRI scanner.

"I think I remember seeing one of these in an abandoned hospital. If they're in hospitals, why do you have one here?" Clementine looked at Cedrick as she knew that he had all the answers.

"So many questions! But it's alright, it's my job to assist people. Well, since this is the first time NASA has ever used hypersleep, they weren't sure what effects it would have on the body, especially in space. We tested it at Earth and it worked fine. But we weren't sure if it would be the same in space. So the brilliant minds of NASA fitted me with the knowledge of thousands of doctors and they decided we should add a small MRI scanner for safety and research purposes."

Rolf's body fully entered the machine and Cedrick walked over to a flickering screen. Everyone left the patient table and crowded around the screen. The screen stopped flickering and it showed a human head in an ice blue color. But something wasn't right.

Where the brainstem was located, laid a menacing large jet black patch that covered the stem and the whole brain. But at the bottom of the brain, there was a red glowing patch.

"What is that?" Sterling asked as he stared at the red patch.

Cedrick didn't answer him and instead, continued to stare at it in complete disbelief. "I uhhh, I don't know. But it seems to be taking over the brain."

The room was noiseless as everyone stared at the screen. The brain and brainstem were almost completely black, signaling that the brain was completely dead.

"Clementine, you said that you've seen people turn into walker's by getting bitten right?" Cedrick didn't make eye contact and instead continued to stare at the blacked out brain.

"Yeah, what're you getting at?" Clementine asked as she also continued to stare at the blacked out brain.

"Take Rolf's body out," Cedrick ordered as he went to the keyboard.

"What the heck? We just put him in there, why do you want us to take him out?" Sterling raised his eyebrows and walked towards Cedrick.

"I think I have a theory about these walkers and I want to test it."

"What do you mean test it? Aren't we testing it right now?"

"Yeah, I agree with him, what're you trying to do Cedrick?" Eduardo crossed his arms and squinted his eyes at Cedrick.

"Guys, just let Cedrick do what he wants to do. Jesus, you guys are acting like he's gonna do something bad." Lyall turned the knob counter clockwise which made the patient table move outwards, away from the MRI scanner.

"Not until Cedrick tells us this plan he's got." Sterling continued to stare at the cybernetic organism in front of him.

"Well Sterling, using my advanced cybernetic brain, I've constructed a reason as to why walkers exist and I need to let a living human enter the MRI scanner so it can scan their brain."

The patient table clicked as it finished getting out of the scanner. "So, who's going to volunteer?" Cedrick searched around the room to find a volunteer but no one raised their hands and instead, shook their heads.

"Sorry, I feel like I'll be trapped in there." Eduardo stared at the terrifying machine. Everyone else nodded in agreement, except Clementine. Cedrick turned to face the woman in the white and blue baseball cap and smiled slightly. "Could you please get in the scanner for us? I would be very grateful."

"Sorry, I feel trapped just standing inside this spaceship of yours. I would feel even worse being put in that machine." Clementine also turned around to face the terrifying MRI scanner. Cedrick's smile went away and searched the room once again. "Anybody?"

Lyall raised his hand as he unwillingly volunteered to enter the menacing machine. "Thank you, Lyall. You are doing a great honor for all of us."

Lyall walked over to the patient table and stared at Rolf's cadaver as its eyes were glued to the roof and stared at it with his pure white eyes wide open.

"Well, I guess we'll have to move Rolf." Lyall stared at his dead crew member in disgust.

"I'll get the pole stretcher." Eduardo walked away from everybody and walked towards the stretcher.

"Hey Elwynn, Darius, help me put Rolf's body over onto the stretcher." Lyall walked to the right side of the patient table. "Darius, you go to the end of the table and Elwynn, you go to the side opposite me."

Everyone got to their sides and Eduardo laid the pole stretcher onto the pure white floor near the patient table. "Alright, on three, we'll raise him by our sides and carry him to the stretcher. Ready?" Elwynn and Darius both nodded and Lyall started the countdown. "Alright, one, two, three!"

On three, they all held Rolf and raised him above the table. Grunting, they carried Rolf's heavy body away from the table and laid Rolf's body gently onto the pole stretcher, and Lyall almost fell in the process. The weight of Rolf's body made his arm week as he took a deep breath. He slowly breathed in air through his mouth and out through his nose and his arm relaxed.

"Alright Lyall, could you please take off your jacket and lay down on the patient table for me?" Cedrick asked without facing Lyall and instead, continued to stare at the screen which showed Rolf's dead brain.

Lyall walked slowly back towards the MRI scanner but before he got there, he could already smell the metallic fragrance from Rolf's dead carcass. Lyall took off his snow-white jacket and put it down on the floor. He hesitantly laid himself onto the metallic smelling table and stared at the pure white ceiling just like how Rolf's dead body did.

Clementine walked to the table and stared at Lyall, who was trying to fight off the terrible smell. "Are you okay?" A slight grin grew across her face as she stared at the uncomfortable man.

"You don't smell that?" Lyall stared at the woman who appeared to be completely unphased by the metallic scent. "No, what do you smell?"

"You don't smell that blood from Rolf's dead body?" Lyall stared at Clementine, who still seemed to be perfectly fine while he fought to not smell the awful metallic scent.

"No, I guess I got used to the smell of blood."

Before Lyall could question her further, Cedrick pulled the pure white helmet towards Lyall's face and covered his mug. The helmet blocked some of Lyall's vision but he could still catch a glimpse of the capital D on Clementine's blue and white baseball cap. As Cedrick turned the knob, the table slid into the menacing MRI scanner.

"Just remember, you have to stay perfectly still, if you move even an inch, the image will be disrupted." "Have fun," Clementine said as she disappeared from Lyall's view.

 _Fuck me. Why did I agree to this?_

Lyall could only stare at the roof of the pure white tube as he was being scanned. A high and low pitched chorus of beeps irritated Lyall's ears as a bright white light shined from the roof and blinded him, making him slightly jerk.

"Stop moving Lyall," Cedrick ordered as Lyall jerked around in discomfort.

Lyall forced himself to stop squirming and closed his eyes and focused on breathing. As he continued to breathe, loud screams flooded his ears. The bullets whistled by his head and Lynn's scream continued to echo through his mind. Together, the screams of Lynn, the groans of the walkers, and the whistles of the bullets flying past him made for a very depressing tune that continued to loop in Lyall's mind.

Lyall turned around to face the lead vocal of the song, Lynn, as she yelled her heart out as she laid on the floor and got her face chewed off bit by bit by a walker, blood dripped from the zombified man's deep red teeth as he feasted on the poor helpless woman's face.

Everyone outside of the MRI scanner gasped. This pulled Lyall away from the JFK airport and brought him back to the blinding light of the cramped scanner.

"What's going on guys?" Lyall turned to his left towards another part of the tube where on the other side, stood the rest of the crew.

"Lyall, I told you not to move." Cedrick reminded as Lyall's movement made the image of his brain blurry.

Lyall turned his head back towards the ceiling to face the blinding light once again. He closed his eyes again but this time instead of getting transported back to the JFK airport, he listened to the talking outside of the scanner.

"It's just like I expected. I knew there was another way for this to happen." Cedrick said outside of the tube Lyall laid in.

 _What is going on out there?_

"Wait a minute, so is he-

"No fucking way, I don't believe it."

"We're all fucked."

 _What the hell is going on?!_

"Hey, can I get out of here?" Lyall scrambled around on the patient table as he desperately wanted to get out.

"Yes, but stay still for a second." The sound of footsteps dimmed as Cedrick walked away from the MRI's screen.

After a minute, the lights turned off and all the beeping dissipated. "Alright Lyall, we're taking you out man," Darius said outside of the MRI scanner.

As the patient table that carried Lyall moved outwards, the whispers from everyone outside of the scanner worried Lyall.

The table finished moving out of the scanning machine and Cedrick pulled the white helmet away from Lyall's head. As the headgear was pulled away, Lyall took a deep breath and stared at the pure white ceiling once again, both happy to be out of the machine, but also terrified at what the people outside observed that made them gasp.

Lyall quickly got off the table and stood back on his feet. He grabbed his snow-white and hesitantly walked to the screen on the MRI scanner. But what was on the screen Lyall was completely unprepared for.

On the screen, it showed Lyall's head and his brain in an ice blue color. But on part of his brain stem laid a black patch, the same as in Rolf expect on a way smaller scale. And at the bottom of it, laid a red patch, smaller than what Rolf had. "What… what is that?"

"That Lyall, is what caused Rolf to turn into a walker," Cedrick made his way to the screen. The screen split in two, one side had Lyall's MRI while the other had Rolf's.

"As you can see, Rolf's brain is completely black, not a single speck of blue is here. There's also a lot of red around the bottom of the brain, around the cerebellum and the brainstem. Yet with you Lyall, you've got it but you're still alive. So all that redness you and Rolf have, it's what causes humans to reanimate in some sort of unfathomable way." Cedrick pointed towards both screens as he talked, pointing out all the details.

"What are you trying to say, Cedrick?" Lyall continued to stare at the MRI scans as he waited for the answer he didn't want to hear.

"What I'm trying to say, Lyall, is that you are infected with this virus."

Lyall was back at the airport again, surrounded by tons of walkers. But this time, he was all alone. None of the bullets whistled and none of the guns erupted. Only the groans and moans of the walkers could be heard. All of them limped towards him with their pale, inhuman like skin and their ripped and bloody clothes, their teeth dripped with deep red blood and their pure white eyes stared towards him. They were all staring at what they once were, but now they stared at them as their next meal.

The nightmare quickly flashed away and Lyall was back at the medical bay of _Aurora_. "No no no, you can't be serious! This can't be fucking happening!" Lyall backed up against a wall and sat on the floor, he bent his legs and put both of his arms over them. Lyall put his head down and stared at the pure white floor as he thought about what he would become.

 _This can't be fucking real, this can't be fucking real!_

Images flashed in his mind of Rolf as a walker. He jumped on top of Lyall and tried to bite his face off, his breath smelled like metal, his pure white eyes stared deep into his soul, Rolf didn't give a damn about Lyall and instead, tried to eat him alive. The scenes kept flashing in his head and Lyall couldn't control it, he was losing his mind.

 _No no! Fuck no! Fuck fuck fuck! God dammit this can't happen! Noooo!_

Lyall kept shaking his head as the images kept flashing over and over again. Blood was everywhere, groans echoed through the room, yells came from all directions.

"Hey Lyall, you okay man?" Kostas stared at the crazed man as he tried to talk to him.

Lyall continued to shake his head as he stared at the floor and didn't try to make eye contact with Kostas.

"Lyall?"

Lyall quickly got up with anger and fear in his eyes. "No, I'm not! How can I be okay?! I'm going to turn into one of those monsters!" Lyall yelled as he let out all the anger inside of him.

Lyall sank back to the floor and bent his legs and stared at the floor once again. The room was noiseless and no-one spoke a word. Everyone stared at their leader who was now in a terrible state of mind.

"But Lyall, you didn't hear everything I had to say." Lyall raised his head from the ground and stared at the Cybernetic organism, trying to hold back tears. "What do you mean?"

"This virus you have, it killed Rolf here. But yet you're still alive. This means the bite didn't kill Rolf. If that were true, then you wouldn't have this virus."

"So why do I have it then?" Lyall tilted his head and scratched his eyes.

"Well like I said, the bite didn't cause this virus to be implemented into you. And nothing was injected into you either. So, like other diseases, it was an airborne disease. This means-

"It means you got the virus by breathing in the air." Clementine interrupted Cedrick as she quickly answered the question.

"Wait, what?" Lyall slowly got back to his feet and stared at Cedrick.

"She's right, the only way for it to have gotten into your body is by it being an airborne disease." Cedrick turned towards Clementine and stared at her. "Wait a minute, you knew about this?"

"Yeah, when this whole thing started, this one guy named Ben who joined our group, he told us about it. He said the bite didn't make you turn into a walker, you're still going to turn into a walker no matter what. You'll turn into one of them when you die. But you can stop it by shooting the brain, like how I did with that guy earlier. If you shoot them there, they'll be truly dead."

"So wait a minute, we're all infected?" Lyall stared at the woman in the blue and white ballcap with the capital letter D, who nodded. The whole room went completely silent. Everyone stared at each other as they all knew what their future held. One way or another, they would all become one of those human eating walkers. The room stayed silent for a while as everyone continued to try and fathom what they were told.

"So uhhhh, what are we going to do about him?" Clementine stared at Rolf's dead body and everyone else did the same as they knew what they had to do with the body.

"We have to put him through the space chute," Lyall answered as he stared at what he himself would later become.

"The space what?" Clementine asked as she tilted her head towards Lyall.

* * *

After everyone said their final goodbyes, they left Rolf in the space chute. Everyone crowded around the outside of the big jet black metal door. Inside the small room behind the door laid Rolf's dead body.

Lyall put his hand on a charcoal gray lever and faced Rolf one last time through the small glass at the top of the door. Rolf dead body laid peacefully in a T-pose as it waited to be ejected into space.

"Goodbye, my friend." Lyall pulled the lever and on the other side of the door, a wall opened. The wall hissed as it opened an entrance into the cold, dark, and never ending vacuum of space filled with millions of planets, stars, moons, and galaxies. The vacuum of space pulled Rolf's body slowly towards it. Rolf's body floated up and made its way out of _Aurora_.

Lyall walked away from the lever and walked to the window, where everyone else stood. As he stood next to the window pane, Rolf's body floated slowly out of _Aurora_ and was getting pulled into space. Lyall glanced towards Clementine, who was glued to the window as she stared at both the never ending sea of space and Rolf's dead carcass floating along with it, floating farther and farther away.

"You know, I think it's kind of messed up to send him into space," Clementine said as she continued to stare at the body drifting away.

"Yeah, it is. But it had to be done. We can't keep a dead body on this ship. Thank god we don't have to do it anymore." Lyall stared at the body for a while and then went back to the lever. He pushed up the lever to its regular position and the wall's hissed again as they retracted back into place. As Lyall stared at the closing walls, a little speck of white from Rolf's jacket shined in the distance as he slowly pulled away. The walls came to a close and the entrance to space was now closed.

Lyall turned away from the lever and noticed that everyone continued to look out the window towards Rolf's body as it continued to float away from view.

* * *

"I can't believe all this shit is happening," Lyall stared down at the pure white circular dinner table.

"Hey calm down Lyall, I have the virus just like you do. I've survived for a long time and I'm sure you can do the same." Clementine responded as she stared at the man with his head down.

"I'm not thinking about that."

"Well, what are you thinking about?"

Lyall raised his head and sighed. He turned to his left and met Clementine's hazel eyes with his sky blue eyes. "I'm thinking of the people who used to be a part of this crew before they left. Lynn, Rolf…" Lyall's voice trailed off.

When they were about to blast off into space back at the JFK airport, Dominick chose to stay back on Earth instead of going back to where he spent the last ten years pretty much sleeping. He didn't even know he was infected with the virus. But then again, being on his own, he might've already turned into one of them…

"You okay Lyall?" Clementine asked as she stared at the man with his head towards the table.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just that before you met us, there used to be a guy named Dominick who was a part of the group. But before we went back into space, he decided to stay back on Earth."

"I don't blame him, I don't like being in space either. I would rather stay back on Earth but I don't really have much of a choice."

Lyall chuckled and shook his head slightly. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"Uh, excuse me, ma'am?" Clementine turned away from Lyall and faced the person talking to her. "Uh, yes?"

"I don't believe we met. My name is Cedrick." The cybernetic organism answered as he held out his hand.

"Oh hello Cedrick, my names Clementine." Clementine shook Cedrick's hand and stared into Cedrick's eyes. But what she saw made her jump back and she bumped into Lyall, who fell off his chair as a result.

The chattering around them died as Lyall and Clementine both laid on the floor. Lyall grunted as he got back to his feet. "What the heck Clementine?"

"Did you not see the red lights in Cedrick's eyes?" Clementine asked as she got up to face Lyall.

Cedrick faced the dirty blonde haired man. "You didn't tell her Lyall?"

'"Tell me what?" Clementine asked as she also stared at Lyall.

"There was no need to."

"What didn't you tell me?" Clementine tugged on Lyall's jacket as she tried to get his attention.

"Well you see Clementine, Cedrick here... he's not human."

Clementine turned around and stared at Cedrick. "What?"

"Yeah… he's actually a cybernetic organism." Clementine continued to stare at the cyborg with her mouth dropped.

"Well, a cybernetic organism with living tissue over a metal endoskeleton to be exact," Cedrick corrected as Clementine stared at what she thought was once a regular human. Clementine stared deep into it's jet black eyes and saw it's red pupils once again. They both pulsated slightly in a rhythmic fashion at the same exact time.

"What are you?" Clementine backed up slowly away from Cedrick.

"Don't worry Clementine, he won't hurt you," Lyall said as she continued to back away from Cedrick.

"Are you sure? I heard robots could turn evil and kill us." Clementine turned around and stared at Lyall's regular sky blue eyes.

Cedrick shook his head. "I'm not a robot I'm a-

Everyone in the dining hall was taken aback as a scream echoed through the halls of _Aurora_. Lyall shivered as a cold chill went up to his spine.

"What the hell was that?" Sterling ran to the door and peeked out.

"Who's out there?" Lyall asked as he ran towards the door. Lyall and Sterling stared down the long hallway but they couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"No no! Stop! Please!" A man yelled from somewhere inside the ship.

The voice was of the same person Lyall yelled at a couple minutes prior and it was also the same person who got angry at Clementine for shooting Rolf.

"Come on guys!" Lyall quickly ran towards the ladder at the center of _Aurora_. The rest of the crew followed him as he held onto the sides of the ladder and slid down it.

"Kostas! Where are you?!" Everything was completely silent and only the sound of hands grasping the cold ladder made noise as everyone climbed down the ladder.

"Get off me!" The screams from Kostas were distant and they got louder as Lyall ran towards them.

But then Lyall stopped in front of the hallway he absolutely hated. He stared deeply into the dark, hexagonally shaped hallway but couldn't see Kostas anywhere. Kostas' continued screams were the only thing that could be heard down the dark and depressing hallway.


End file.
